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After months of
debates and deliberations, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 was
passed by the Indian government on 7 September, 2005. It had been introduced as
a bill in the Lok Sabha in 2004 and is the latest in a long line of poverty
alleviation programmes in India. Newspapers, political parties and commentators
have hailed it as a landmark legislation. Under the EGA all that the needy must
do to find wage labour is to intimate the concerned authority and the onus is on
the government to provide employment within 15 days. All this makes EGA very
attractive but strangely there is little euphoria among the people for whom it
is intended. As an old villager put it "darinder darkhast diya to dafter band ho
gaya" (when the wretched make a submission, the office will be shut down – EPW
Oct., 2005). The skepticism is certainly not unfounded.
According to the
NREGA, each state government is supposed to provide unskilled manual work to
adults of every rural household for not less than one hundred days of such work
in a financial year. For this purpose, every state government is supposed to
provide a scheme or programme within six month of commencement of this Act.
Until any such employment guarantee programme is initiated by the state
government, the annual action plan for the Sampurna Grameen Rojgar Yojana or the
National Food for work programme, whichever is in force in the concerned area at
the time of implementation of the NREGA shall be deemed to be the action plan
for the scheme.
Provisions of the
Act:
o The NREGA seeks to
provide one hundred days of guaranteed employment to adult applicants from poor
households at a minimum wage rate of Rs. 60/- or the minimum wage rate
prevailing in the concerned state whichever is higher , in every financial year.
Each person, when has done work given to him under the scheme, is entitled to
receive wages at the wage rate for each day of work and payment of daily wages
shall be made on a weekly basis or within a fortnight of work being done .
o The scheme is self
elective meaning that the potential beneficiaries of the scheme are identified
by their own application for the scheme.
o EGA will be
implemented by the state governments with funding from the central government.
Specific responsibilit-ies are given to the district administration, block
office and gram panchayat. The basic unit of implementation is the block and in
each block, a ‘programme officer’ or a ‘block officer’ will be in charge who
would be accountable to the panchayat samiti as well as to the district
administration.
o If an applicant for
employment is not provided employment within fifteen days of his application, he
shall be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance. The rate would be specified
by the state government provided that the rate is not less than one fourth of
the wage rate for the first thirty days of the financial year and not less than
one-half of the wage rate for the remaining period of the financial year. The
payment of this allowance shall cease in case of any one of the following:
As soon as applicant
is directed by the gram panchayat or the programme officer to report for work
either by himself or depute at least one adult member of his household.
The period for which
employment is sought comes to an end and no member of the household of the
applicant has turned up for employment.
The adult members of
the household of the applicant have received in total at least one hundred days
of work within the financial year.
The household of the
applicant has earned as much from the wages and unemployment allowance taken
together which is equal to the wages for one hund-red days of work during the
financial year.
o NREGA aims to
create productive assets focusing on the following works in order of priority.
Water conservation and harvesting
Drought proofing
Irrigation
Renovation of traditional water bodies
Land
development.
Flood control and protection
Rural connectivity
NREGA specifies that
the ratio of wages (to NREGA beneficiaries) to capital and other expenditure
(including wages of any skilled and semi skilled workers) in NREGA works is to
be 60:40.
The central
government is to undertake the entire cost of NREGA wages as well as three
fourth of capital expenditure (90% total expenditure) and the state government
is expected is take up the remaining 10% of the total expenditure.
The Right to
Information Act will cover the implementation of NREGA i.e. people are supposed
to have general access to public records and information pertaining to NREGA.
The idea of the state
providing employment (self employment and wage employment) to the rural poor for
poverty alleviation is not new. The Famine and Drought Relief codes of the
British colonial government provided for employment on public works. Post 1947,
the Indian government instituted many schemes in the course of the five year
plans, such as the National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and the Rural
Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP) which were later merged to form
the Jawahar Rozgar Yojna ( JRY). There were also other schemes which did not
focus on guaranteed employment such as the Integrated Rural Development
Programme (IRDP) which focused on transfer of (rather than creation of )
productive assets to the people. There were also several Food for Work
programmes starting from the late ‘70s. However the direct precursor of the
NREGA can be said to be the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme (MEGS) which
was made into a state wide scheme on 26th January, 1979. In the 10th plan, the
focus is now on SGRY on one hand (for self employment) and NREGA for wage
employment.
Before we go on to
look at the ‘merits’ of the present Act, let us take a look at the extent of
rural poverty, which this act is supposed to eradicate.
The sheer magnitude
of unemployment in India is mindboggling. The NSSO puts the rate of unemployment
as 4.4% (1999—2000) and that of visible underemployment as 7.2%. However some
other studies have calculated underemployment as 13.3% which makes the total of
unemployment and underemployment, a staggering 17.7% (4.4+13.3) [Peoples March
August, 2005].
Even this does not
reveal the real picture because in an economy like India, with no unemployment
benefits, remaining unemployed is not an option for the vast majority. Therefore
there are large numbers who are technically employed but are subsisting at bare
minimum levels. Of the total number of employed, 84% fall in the category of
self employed or are casual workers. Over 30% of those employed live in dire
poverty. The situation has become even graver since the mid 90s with a virtual
collapse of all avenues of rural employment and a sharp increase in unemployment
in the other sectors.
It is in this context
that the present UPA government brought in the NREGA which is being supported by
all the so called left parties as well. Can NREGA offer a solution to the raging
unemployment and worsening poverty which stalks the country?
The first question
that needs to be asked is whether this Act can even claim to eradicate poverty.
According to the provisions of this Act, the beneficiaries would get a wage of
Rs. 60 for a minimum of 100 days ie. Rs. 6000 per year. Taking an average
household size of 5 people this amounts to a paltry sum of Rs. 3.28 per person
per day! Can this kind of additional income even be called dignified employment,
leave alone attempting to remove poverty? Also the term household is quite
dubious. A household is defined as potentially several families sharing a common
residence, kitchen and ration card. So the implication of this act is that if
one member of such a household gets a job, others are not entitled to
unemployment benefits! Also the act is meant for the rural poor which means that
only those people will be covered by this act who have their names registered in
the BPL list, which as we all know is hugely under-recorded.
Then comes the
question of implement-ation of this programme. Again the experience of self
employment or wage employment programmes for poverty eradication are not new.
One of the prime ministers of India had publicly accepted that only 15 paise in
a rupee reach the villages. On 2 October last year, the prime minister launched
the National Food for Work Programme (NFFW) in 150 districts as a pilot to the
EGA but this pilot program merely followed the conventional Food for Work (FFW)
approach and no attempt was made to find new effective and efficient ways for
implementing this programme. It is the same old structures which will be the
implementing agencies this time as well. The only example of guaranteed state
sponsored rural employment in India is that of the Maharashtra EGS and in that,
through more than two decades of implementation, not a single paisa has been
paid as compensation, in case employment was not been provided. One official
from Maharashtra publicly claimed, "forget compensation, we did not even allow
anyone to challenge us". The unemploy-ment dole remained a dead clause in the
agreement. Why should one expect anything different from NREGA? Right to
information clause also cannot really challenge the abuse of power, as is being
claimed. The gram sabhas and the panchayats remain the instruments of feudal
domination and so the EGA could mean further servitude to bureaucracy and
perpetuation of feudal forms of domination. The ruling classes also need
corruption to grease up their social base.
Moreover, there is no
concrete financial commitment made by the UPA government yet. The estimates of
the cost of the programme amounts to approximately 40,000 crores of rupees of
which 90% is to be borne by the centre and 10% by the states. Past experience
shows that this could become an instrument for the states and the center to
simply blame each other. Though the act provides for the creation of a separate
fund for the NREGA at the central and the state levels, this is to be credited
by way of grants or loans after due appropriation is made by the parliament.
Till date all that the finance minister has committed is that "funds would be
arranged". From where, no one knows! As of now, the central and the state
governments together spend around Rupees 17,000 crores for various rural
employment schemes which would now be diverted for the NREGA. But where would
the remaining Rs.33,000 crores come from? And this is the estimated requirement
for just the first phase of the Act which is supposed to cover 200 districts.
The provision about
creation of productive assets can also potentially lead to widespread
corruption. In practice, all ‘works’ to be selected are not identified by the
local community but by the ‘experts’ in the state capitals wherein the
contractors find a role to make money. A look at the list of ‘works’ chosen in
the 150 NFFW districts shows that only assets with money spinning potential were
taken up.
Also the act has a
beautifully built in loophole to ensure that it will not be actually implanted
but only sufficient noises would be made. There is a clause which says that if
there is any complaint regarding corruption, the funds for the entire district
would be immediately stopped. In other words, even before it has begun, there is
a guarantee of its non implementation.
However the most
important of all criticisms is the fact that it is a reform measure and like all
other reforms, it does not address the root cause of unemployment and poverty.
More importantly, and more dangerously, as with other reform programmes, this
too has the underlying political purpose of trying to legitimise the present
state which represents the imperialist and the feudal interests. Like with other
reforms, it intends it divert the people away from class struggle by providing
some sops and in this regard there is no difference in the intentions of UPA,
NDA or the CPI/CPM. Even the supposed controversy regarding this Act was never a
real controversy, but was concerned merely with some technical aspects of the
Act. Had this not been so, there would have been differences regarding the
present policies of the government which are generating unemployment and poverty
in the first place. The path of development undertaken by the ruling classes is
such that it necessarily leads to further marginalisa-tion of those who are
already poor. As a result of the economic policies of LPG of the government, the
organized sector is retrenching people on a large scale, the small scale
industry has virtually collapsed and the agricultural sector has been showing
negative growth rates. Especially since the mid 1990s, not only avenues of
employment generation collapsed but even the hitherto existing employment
opportunities are being deliberately scrapped. Without questioning the
development strategy, it is more mockery to talk of employment generation.
There is enough reason to suspect
that the act is actually meant to wean the people away from revolutionary
struggles rather than to provide employment or to eradicate poverty. If one
looks at the initial 150 districts to be covered by this Act [these were the
districts chosen by the National Food for Work Programme which was a pilot
programme for the present Act] it would be quite clear that those selected are
either already areas of intense class struggle for example, Adilabad , Khammam,
Warangal (AP); Bastar, Dantewada, Kanker (Chattisgarh); Gumla, Chatra Garhwah,
Palamau, Latehar (Jharkhand); Koraput, Malkangiri (Orissa); Midnapur (West
Bengal) are areas where revolutionary struggle is quite strong. [The NREGA seeks
to cover these 150 and an additional 50 districts in the first phase and extend
to all six hundred districts of the country within a period of five years.] This
is not really surprising and as both the UPA and the CPM have been talking about
naxalism being the main threat for internal security and about socio economic
backwardness being an important factor for breeding naxalism. Undoubtedly, this
then, is an important und erlying concern for the passage of the present act.
Actually after US faced defeat at hands of Vietnam, such reform measures were
made part of the low intensity conflict strategy of the imperialists in order to
counter insurgency. The Indian government is not doing any thing different. And
in this regard there is no controversy between the UPA, NDA, CPI or CPM. There
is sufficient reason to suspect the intentions of the government as regards the
present employment guarantee act. Unless employment generation is linked to the
entire path of development, attempts like the NREGA not only become meaning-less
but are actually meant to blunt the class struggle which is a natural
consequence of the government’s development strategy.
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