Rangacharyulu, S.V.  <br/><br/>
Methodology for estimating soil-season specific outputs of workers under MGNREGS. 

 - South Asian Journal of Socio-Political Studies   
 - 25(2), Jan-Jun, 2025: p.60-65 
<br/><br/> The wages to the workers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS) are paid based on the measurement of work output. Work outputs vary depending upon the conditions of the soil and also the season. The output is expected to be lower when the worker works in a hard soil as compared to the soft soil. The output will also be lower when the work is taken up in summer months as compared to the other months in a year. Still lower outputs can be expected when both the conditions prevail- season wise, summer and soil wise hard soil. Regardless of all these intricacies involved in realizing outputs, if the worker is paid a wage based on seven hours’ work, it is certain that he will be put to a disadvantage. (It is learnt that some states nominally compensate for the lower outputs in respect of works taken up in difficult conditions). In other words, the labour put in by the worker is not adequately compensated. This paper looks into these intricacies and comes out with estimated soil-season specific outputs. As per this paper, an output of 2.15 cub mts per worker in 7 hours ( excluding one hour’s lunch break) would be the yardstick to define a wage ( entailing a wage of Rs.260, for instance ) in the normal condition ( soft soil and non-summer). In contrast to this, the same amount of Rs.260 needs to be paid for ( a lesser) an output of 1.73 cub mts when the worker is engaged in hard soil and summer environment. – Reproduced <br/><br/>https://www.sajospsglobal.com/current.html<br/>