Shillong, Feb 2: The Congress Party mourned the demise of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on its 20th birthday today.
In Meghalaya, the state unit of the Congress said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government has “dismantled” a legally guaranteed right to work and replaced it with a “discretionary scheme” that will let the state step back when work is unavailable. “This isn’t reform, it’s abandonment,” Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee chairman of social media, Lang Kupar War, said.
MGNREGA was passed in 2005 and was implemented from 2006. It guaranteed rural workers 100 days of paid employment per year. It was replaced last year by the VB G-RAM-G, which the central government touts as a promise to give rural citizens 125 days of work per year, though the opposition, like the Congress, have been critical of the details.
War said MGNREGA ensured wages in hard times, reduced migration, kept children in school and gave women dignity. “For nearly two decades, it promised work when needed. That promise is now gone,” he added.
“The MPCC condemns MGNREGA’s repeal and demands restoration of a universal, demand-driven right to work. We stand with rural workers, women, Adivasis, Dalits and those who depended on this law,” the state Congress stated.
