PIL in SC demands full wages for 7.6 crore MGNREGA workers during lockdown

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 4

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court demanding full wages for over 7.6 crore active job card holders under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 during the 21-day nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

Filed by activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, the PIL urged the top court to "issue uniform guidelines to all States, Union Territories that for the entire duration of the lockdown at least all active and registered job card holders under the MGNREGA Act will be deemed to be at work and accordingly make full payment of their wages at the earliest."

The petitioners wanted the court to increase the entitlement of households from 100 days of work to 200 days per household to support rural livelihoods during the emerging economic crisis. 

They also requested the top court to direct the Centre and states to issue individual temporary job cards within 15 days to all migrants who have returned from the cities to their native villages. 

In all, over 12.2 crore labourers work in MGNREGA every year. But active job card holders are those who have been seeking work and coming to work under MGNREGA over the past two years.

The petition contended that the March 24 lockdown order issued under Section 6 and Section 10 of the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 was binding on all Ministries/Instrumentalities of the Central and State Governments and only essential services were exempt from it 

As it required all citizens to follow bsocial and physical distancing and didn't exempt works performed under MGNREGA, it was not possible for MGNREGA card holders to work and earn livelihood, the petition submitted.

It urged the top court to direct that "at least all active job card holders under MGNREGA over the past one year will be deemed to be on duty during the 21-day lockdown period and accordingly direct them to make payment of wages without deductions urgently."

The petition is likely to come up for hearing early next week.

Describing MGNREGA as a programme meant to be a lifeline to rural workers during this kind of distress circumstances, the petitioners said, "It would be completely unfair to not enable MGNREGA to provide the support that it is designed to give when rural workers are facing the country's worst challenge of unemployment and limited access to money and foodgrains."

All active MGNREGA registered households should be deemed to be on duty for the entire duration of the lockdown period starting from March 24 and paid their full wages, the PIL demanded.

The petition sought directions to the Centre and states to draw up interim guidelines, and/or an amended scheme under section 4 of the Act, and appropriately amend the schedule of works under schedule 1 of the Act for implementing MGNREGA during the FY 2020-21 once the lockdown period was over, in order to respond to this crisis in a sustainable manner in view of the lasting threat of waves of the virus.

Section 22(l)(a) of the MGNREG Act mandated that the Central Government shall pay the entire wage component and the Central Government has called a nationwide lockdown it must be the duty of the Central Government to follow the orders of Ministry of Labour dated March 20, 2020 to pay full wages without any deductions, the PIL said.

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