Collaborative MGNREGA implementation in Odisha improved livelihoods; such efforts will be discouraged by budget cut
Photo: iStock Migration as the movement of humans has shaped much of human history — the cultural diversity in our country (and world) would not have been possible without migration. But it becomes a policy challenge when driven by distress, primarily the lack of remunerative and dignified livelihood options in rural India.
Juxtaposing figures such as 86 per cent farmers in the country are smallholders (with less than two hectares land), deterioration and encroachment of commons, land degradation (32 per cent land considered degraded), water scarcity (600 million facing water shortage) and the latest income (Rs 10,218 for agri-households) and debt (half agri-households indebted, average around Rs 75,000) from the Situation Assessment Survey (2019), it becomes clear that rural livelihoods are affected across the length and breadth of India.
Yet, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MGNREGA) received the lowest allocation in 17 years in the Union Budget 2023-24 released on February 1, 2023, apart from the first two years of the scheme.
In the eastern state of Odisha, distress migration has been a protracted socio-economic struggle. It became more pronounced in the 1990s, when the advent of an agrarian crisis in rural India coincided with the hope of growth and development in the cities due to liberalisation.
P Sainath, a keen observer of the crisis, wrote:
From the late 90s, as the crisis began to bite, communities that had not resorted to migration before did so. The Dalits of Kalahandi in Orissa (Odisha) were migrants much earlier. From the ‘90s they were joined by Adivasis, milk-producer OBC groups and others.
The Census of 2011 estimated 850,000 migrant workers from Odisha, with significant numbers in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Within Odisha, the districts of western and coastal Odisha have been noted by multiple studies as the hotspots of out-migration, especially short-term and ‘footloose’ migration.
A 2014 study on seven districts of western and coastal Odisha put the number of migrants from the state at 1.5 million.
During the COVID-19-induced lockdowns, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar witnessed the largest inflow of reverse migrants. The Odisha government had estimated the number of stranded migrants from the state at 750,000 during the lockdowns, while certain independent estimates put the number close to a million.
During the COVID-19 induced lockdown, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar witnessed the largest inflow of reverse migrants.
Even before the peak of reverse migration, the state government of Odisha had announced a policy experiment of providing 200 additional days of MGNREGA work in the four migration-prone districts Bargarh, Bolangir, Kalahandi and Nuapada. This was meant to be implemented as Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM)-based MGNREGA led by development organisation PRADAN.
Odisha is most likely the first state in India to have implemented this initiative.
The policy emphasised the creation of natural resource assets such as water harvesting structures and land development interventions in the migration-prone blocks and focused on locations inhabited by socially marginalised communities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes).
Assets, both individual and community-commons, were meant to be created, along with the provision of top-up wages for those who work. Funds for extra wages were promised.
A distinct feature of this intervention was the collaborative arrangement of line departments and civil society organisations (CSO), right from planning of works to mobilisation for work demand, through implementation and monitoring of work and payments.
The author was among a group of researchers from the School of Rural Management, XIM University who studied the impacts of this policy experiment.
They conducted a survey of 677 households, evenly spread across project locations: 10 blocks and 20 villages, where INRM-based interventions were made and 10 blocks and 20 villages, where standard-MGNREGA was implemented (non-project locations). We also interviewed key officials from CSOs and line departments and analysed the secondary data from MGNREGA Management Information System.
Overall, the total and average person-days and the number of households with 100 days of employment were found to have increased in one year of implementation (financial year 2020-21).
A greater reported reduction in out-migration in project locations ( around 44 per cent), where the INRM-based projects were implemented than in non-project locations (9 per cent) was observed.
Other trends that are demonstrate the efficacy of the policy experiment are:
Though it is still early to predict long-term impacts on distress migration, our study highlights that the collaborative and livelihood-assets-enhancing MGNREGA can be a potential pathway towards addressing distress migration for multiple reasons.
First, an increase in household wage income as well as cropping area and duration, combined with rejuvenated community commons and productive household assets (land, water) highlights positive impacts on multiple livelihood-related drivers of distress-migration.
Second, this experiment highlighted its potential in augmenting the resilience of migrant household at the peak of the pandemic. Post-pandemic, considering even the return of migrants, there are compelling reasons for having this program for the non-migrant household members, particularly women.
Recent analysis also indicated a latent and suppressed work demand for MGNREGA across the country.
Third, the experiment provides a model of collaborative implementation of MGNREGA, which can be tried in other states. In fact, the NRLM-MGNREGS-CFT project in MGNREGA comes very close to this experiment.
Finally, notwithstanding the additional costs of this initiative, the multiple benefits on productive livelihood assets, decreased vulnerability to climate change, along with reduced trauma and health costs for the vast majority of migrants, suggest support for such experiments.
Not so long ago, the Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in 2022 had recommended increased budgetary allocation and increased person-days to MGNREGA.
MGNREGA isn’t a magic bullet for distress migration. But collaborative INRM-based MGNREGA should be incentivised, particularly while dealing with complex issues like distress-migration in the changing socio-economic-ecological context of rural India.
The budget cut for MGNREGA is not aligned with the findings of Odisha’s experiment as well as to the ongoing and upcoming experiments in other states to address distress migration through the scheme; it sends a wrong signal to authorities planning such efforts.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.
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