Decoding how PM Modi hacks EVMs, Part 2: Why Sonia Gandhi had a problem with MNREGA reforms and how Modi revolutionised employment, labour sector

 The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

In June 2020, Sonia Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he is trying to give the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) “a new appearance, by integrating it with the Prime Minister’s pet programmes like Swacchh Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.”

I was wondering what is the problem if MNREGA is being “integrated” with other programs. MNREGA is an employment guarantee program. Awas Yojana is a house construction program. Both are government programs. If employment is being provided so that houses can be constructed, how exactly does that amount to giving a “new appearance”? If employment is being provided to keep the country clean (Swachh Bharat), then how does that amount to giving a “new appearance”? Think about it - Isn’t it really efficient if MNREGA is used to speed up the various infrastructure projects of the country? So, what exactly is the problem?!

The answer to all these questions is provided by Sonia Gandhi herself in the later part of her letter. “The panchayats, empowered by Rajiv Gandhi’s path-breaking initiatives, must be brought centre-stage as the MGNREGA is not a centralized program.” 

Ah, so the issue is that the funds are distributed at a district level than at a panchayat level. Sonia Gandhi was preferring that people dig holes and then fill them in their village, in an infinite loop. Instead, Prime Minister Modi decided to pay to construct houses in other areas of their district, and then later he will allot the same houses for them to live in. This will obviously be a problem for the Congress party no!

Taking a cue from Sonia Gandhi, communist leader Brinda Karat wrote that the “The scheme should not be diluted in the name of the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan”. Infact, Brinda Karat even tells us that the months of May and June 2020 when COVID lockdown effects were at their worst, the employment through MNREGA was “much higher when compared to the same months last year”!

In an attempt to ridicule Prime Minister Modi’s efforts, Sonia Gandhi and Brinda Karat inadvertently end up praising him for making the program more meaningful and impactful. Prime Minister Modi tactfully modified this program to include construction of houses, toilets and other infrastructure at a district level. The beneficiary list for these infrastructure programs runs into crores, and I need not elaborate further as to why they will vote for Modi on election day!

If you thought these were the only reforms bought into the employment-guarantee MNREGA, then you are mistaken. Corruption was weeded out by bring in new rules. Infact, this report suggests how Bihar government had to weed out nearly 1.23 crores inactive cards before the central government released any more funds to that state. Modi government has considerably increased the spending on MNREGA over the years.

The green bars in the graph below represent the actual amounts released till 2023 (which have often been much higher than the initial estimates in the budget (blue bars)). The COVID years have seen the highest ever allotments. This is money that has gone directly to the accounts of the beneficiaries, and not down the drain! Now, imagine folks – why wouldn’t all these beneficiaries want to vote for Modi on election day?

The labour or employment reforms don’t stop at just the MNREGA. To help give social security benefits such as accidental and life insurance to workers of the unorganised sector, e-SHRAM card project was launched. A total of nearly 2.9 crore cards were issued to workers in the unorganised sector. Take a look at the registrations across the unorganised sectors, that is publicly available to view on their website. Is it therefore any wonder that many of these crores of people will vote for Modi?

You would now be tempted to ask the obvious. What about the organised sector? What did the Modi do there? Speaking in the Lok Sabha in February of 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told us a startling figure – the past 10 years have seen an addition of 18 crore new entries into EPFO!

If you are an employee, I really don’t have to explain to you the importance of being enrolled into the Employee Provident Fund. You can nitpick, but 18 crore additions in 10 years basically means an average of 1.8 crore new jobs or formalisation every single year (plus a fund on which you will get a 8% return year-over-year, until your retirement!). So many jobs don’t get automatically created without an active government working to create such a positive environment.

 In addition, the Prime Minister announced a massive recruitment of 10 lakh jobs in 18 months, starting October 2022. Within 6 months of that announcement, nearly 3 lakhs appointments were already made! Outside of these recruitments, the government also announced a brilliant short-term scheme – the Agniveer scheme. Here’s a brilliant article on OpIndia on why the Agniveer scheme is very important for India. The Congress opposed this very strongly and even tried to create unrest in the country. This very fact is enough to understand the brilliance of the Agniveer scheme.

Not stopping at these reforms, the Modi government has enacted 4 new Labour and Industrial laws that strengthen both employers and employees - minimum wage has been generalized to all sectors now; overtime pay is mandatory; more money saved for future; much needed clarity on fixed-term employment & trade union rules; gratuity eligibility for short periods; easing rules for lay-offs; more flexibility in eligibility for leaves; special provisions for certain worker types; increased focus on health of workers!

With so many benefits that workers see in their day-to-day life because of so much work by Prime Minister Modi’s government, is it any wonder that most of them will want to vote for him? In the first article of this series “How Modi hacks EVMs”, we had discussed about the impact on small scale entrepreneurs and industries. In this article, we have discussed about the impact on unorganised and organised sector employees. The series will continue to other areas, one after the other!