Government to include more farm works under MGNREGA

NEW DELHI: The rural development ministry has rejected suggestions to halt the government's flagship rural employment scheme during peak farming seasons, proposing instead to include some core agricultural activities in its ambit to address concerns of labour shortage.

This compromise formula follows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention to resolve differences between the ministries of rural development and agriculture. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had called for halting MGNREGA works during sowing and harvesting seasons.

“(However) I do agree with Pawar that we must expand and deepen the positive synergy between MGNREGA and agriculture,” rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said in the letter to the prime minister last week. The activities proposed to be included are rice cultivation methods, soil conservation production of manures and biopesticides, construction of seed storage bins, construction of cattle shed and poultry shelters.

The proposal also seeks to expand the ambit of afforestation activities already allowed under MGNREGA to include tree plantation on individual land and homesteads, multi-purpose vegetation activities for growing fodder and timber and bio-fuels. This is in addition to the works currently permitted under the programme like water conservation and harvesting, construction of irrigation canals, flood control, horticulture plantation and other allied droughtproofing activities.

“These activities are allied activities that are necessary during the agricultural season, therefore it makes sense to include works like this than reduce the duration or degree of benefits given to other people,” said an official in the rural development ministry.

“We can even look at other activities that will assist and add to the productivity of farm and farming,” the official added. A committee headed by Planning Commission member Mihir Shah will look into the ways to “allow largest possible number of works,” Ramesh said in the letter. He aggressively defended MGNREGA entitlements, saying that around 70% of the person days of work generated under the scheme is in the lean agricultural season of January to June. Ramesh said the proposal of the agriculture and food processing minister to designate certain period as off-duration is not only unnecessary but also “violative of the legal character of the demanddriven work guarantee under the Act”.

He clarified that in states like Tamil Nadu where the January-June period is not the lean agricultural season, the work distribution tilts towards the corresponding lean season maintaining the seasonal trend of demand under the programme.