The first regional conference of NREGA workers was jointly organized by Jharkhand NREGA Watch and NREGA Sangharsh Morcha on September 29, 2024, in Ranchi, Jharkhand. More than 100 NREGA and unorganized workers participated in the conference. The conference saw participation from five states – Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Odisha, and Bihar – and approximately ten workers' organizations from these states. This conference was held a day after the workers staged a dharna (protest) in front of Raj Bhavan in Ranchi, Jharkhand, demanding guaranteed employment, timely payment of wages, and an end to arbitrary work allocation.
Activists from various organizations including Jharkhand NREGA Watch, Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan (Bihar), Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samiti (West Bengal), NREGA Watch (Bihar), Odisha Shramajeevi Manch, Right to Food and Work Campaign (West Bengal), Chhattisgarh Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, Pravasi Mazdoor Sangathan (Bihar), and Udayani Social Action Forum (West Bengal) participated in the regional conference. Last year, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha organized the first national conference of NREGA workers in New Delhi. Deeply committed to the universal right to livelihood and the right to life with dignity, the participants discussed and debated various issues affecting the functioning of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (NREGA), and deliberated on ways to implement NREGA in its letter and spirit. As we can see, the condition of NREGA in states like Jharkhand and West Bengal is very poor and its future is in great danger. As was repeatedly stated during the dharna the previous day, "NREGA has been in the ICU for a long time now."
The conference had two main sessions, one where the workers shared their experiences of the challenges faced in NREGA, and the other comprised parallel sessions on the intricacies of the challenges in NREGA. The experiences shared differed in their details but were broadly similar across all states, such as the lack of guaranteed employment, delays in wage payments, inadequate wage compensation, arbitrary technology-driven exclusion in work provision, and the continued use of anti-worker technologies like the National Mobile Monitoring App (NMMS) and the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), among others.
The parallel sessions included discussions on the status of work availability for MNREGA workers, facilities at the worksite, working hours, wage rates, and issues related to wage payment; the employment status of physically disabled persons and primitive tribal groups, especially women, in MNREGA; the excessive use of technology in MNREGA and suggested alternatives, etc.
The discussions and insights shared in these sessions made it clear that securing rights for a "worker-supporting (this) law implemented by an anti-worker system" would be a long road of collective struggle, and yet we must continue to fight. For many workers and their families, the wages earned through NREGA are not just a source of livelihood but a means of survival. The conference concluded on a powerful note with a message from the rural workers to the central and state governments: It is our right to work at a fair wage in NREGA, we will not let it go! We will raise our voices and take it all the way to Delhi to secure our rights!
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