KPCC president calls MGNREGS renaming an Insult to Mahatma Gandhi

The proposed move by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rename Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is an insult to the Father of the Nation, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Sunny Joseph said here.

In a statement here, Mr. Joseph said that it has been the BJP’s agenda, ever since it came to power, to disregard history and to diminish national leaders. The Union government’s move to rename MGNREGS and remove the name of Mahatma Gandhi from the scheme title was a deliberate insult to the Mahatma, he added.

This systematic erasing of Mahatma’s name is an indication of how much the BJP feared his legacy and memory. Despite the BJP’s efforts to obliterate Mahatma’s name, it will not succeed because his name is inexorably interwoven into the soul of the nation, he said.

During the winter session of Parliament On Monday, the Union government introduced the Viksit Bharat Guarantee For Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Grameen) Bill, shortened as VB G RAM G, to replace MNREGS.

The KPCC president said that if at all the Centre was sincere about improving the scheme, it should ensure that the wages to be disbursed by the State are released on time and the 100 days of guaranteed work should be increased to 150 days.

He accused the Centre of consistently adopting policies which were aimed at destroying the employment guarantee scheme. The Centre had imposed many restrictions on the scheme’s fund utilisation and the number of work days had been cut short.

The Plan funds for the scheme has been capped at 60%, and the Union government has consistently reduced the allocated amount in each Budget, Mr. Joseph said.

The MGNREGS, launched by the UPA government in 2005, guarantees 100 days of work each year in rural areas. It has been hailed as a game-changer legislation over the last two decades.

Increased days

The new Bill proposes to raise the guaranteed work days to 125 and that the wages are paid within a week or 15 days after the work is completed. In case this deadline is not met, there is provision for the payment of unemployment dole.

But the key change to the scheme – from a 100% Centrally-sponsored scheme to a Centre-State joint scheme at a funding ratio of 60: 40 – could upset the budgetary plans of States.