Opinion - Leader Page Articles   

Employment guarantee — signs of transformation

Nirmala Lakshman

A substantial social audit reveals that in the harsh terrain of Dungarpur, Rajasthan, where daily living poses a constant challenge, employment on public works has risen to unprecedented levels over the last two months.

A QUIET revolution appears to be taking place in many impoverished rural districts across the country. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which came into force on February 2, is having a perceptible impact on these districts. In Dungarpur in Rajasthan, one of the six districts in the State chosen for the first phase of the NREGA implementation, a substantial social audit revealed that in this harsh terrain, where daily living poses a constant challenge, employment on public works has risen to unprecedented levels over the last two months. About half of all families in rural Dungarpur now have one household member employed under the NREGA.

The social audit, which took place at the end of April, involved around 600 participants from 11 States. The Astha Sansthan and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) helped in the implementation of the social audit. The audit participants organised themselves into groups of padyatris, and in a ten-day march, these groups spread awareness about the NREGA and compiled reports on implementation of the NREGA across the district. They also verified the extent to which the entitlements promised by the legislation had reached the people.

The NREGA is the first step towards realising the right to work, which is included in the Constitution as one of the Directive Principles. It says, "The State shall in particular direct its policy towards securing ... that the citizens, men and women equally have the right to an adequate means of livelihood." The NREGA essentially addresses urgent and immediate issues of hunger and deprivation, since it is this lack of livelihood, lack of food security, and endemic poverty that sends rural households into the downward spiral of destitution. In the context of acute distress and deprivation in many parts of the country, the new law impels the state to take clear responsibility for providing a social safety net for every poor rural household. However, as economist and social activist Jean Dreze says, legislation alone will not guarantee employment, continuous mobilisation is required. The law is being implemented in 200 of the poorest districts in this initial phase and is expected to cover the entire country within five years. All rural households are eligible to register for work and the gram panchayat must issue a `job card' that will be valid for five years. The card records the number of days worked, wages paid, unemployment benefits received and other particulars and is a tool to prevent corruption. The job must be within a five-kilometre distance of the applicant's home. Beneficiaries are entitled to the statutory minimum wage applicable in each State and an unemployment allowance must be paid if employment is not provided within 15 days of the receipt of the application for work. The employment guarantee is limited to 100 days of work per household a year.

During the social audit exercise in Dungarpur district, the padyatris found that in almost every village, people were aware of their entitlement to 100 days of work a year although many were not aware of the specific details of the entitlement. The marchers were given a village questionnaire, a worksite questionnaire, and a panchayat questionnaire to collect information. At the end of the march, a panel discussion was held with academics, senior bureaucrats from other States as well as the Collector of Dungarpur, Manju Rajpal. Coordinated by social activist Aruna Roy of the MKSS, the panel raised a host of issues that reflected not only the challenges in making such a far-reaching piece of legislation a reality, but also the positive effects of having such a system in place.

While there will obviously be a great deal of variability in NREGA implementation across States and across regions, the Dungarpur experience shows that despite some problems, there is a significant leap forward in employment, and the local administration is giving the issue highest priority, according to Jean Dreze. The social audit found that all the work was organised by gram sabhas, and the sense of legal entitlement shored up by the significant impact of the Right to Information Act in Rajasthan has led to a culture of transparency and accountability in this district. For example, muster rolls were found at almost every worksite without any evidence of having been tampered with. Another positive outcome is that close to 80 per cent of the labourers in this area were women (as the men would typically migrate for work), and therefore the NREGA is making an impact on the earning capacities of women as well, which will positively affect gender equations in the community. Social activist Sowmya Sivakumar said that women's work, which is undervalued, will now be assessed differently and lead to their empowerment. She also noted that there was a demand for some payment in grain rather than cash by many women in the district.

The audit found that working women faced several problems. For instance, worksite facilities were almost non-existent. There was no medical or child care and in most cases mothers had to keep young infants in the open in the blistering heat, or leave them at home, often in the care of older children or other family members. As Aruna Roy pointed out, the lack of crèche facilities (required by the new law) meant that many mothers could not feed their children for up to eight hours in a day and this in turn would adversely affect their children's nutrition. Siddharth of the National Law School, Jodhpur, who along with Jean Dreze bicycled through several panchayats assessing the ground situation, said that some mothers who were breast feeding their children had to keep going back to their homes in the middle of their work day to feed their children, causing them great hardship.

The social audit revealed that there were problems with regard to the measurement of work as well as the wages paid. Many workers expressed the view that the quantum of work that was required from an individual worker was excessive. There was no consideration of variations in the soil or the conditions of lift and lead that have a bearing on individual work output. Most people ended up being paid only between Rs.40 and 60 a day (as opposed to the Rajasthan minimum daily wage of Rs.73). Social activist Nikhil Dey of the MKSS said most tasks were too difficult to complete. In a recent article in The Hindu , Mihir Shah says that with regard to measuring labour, "there appears to be a genuine difficulty, a deep contradiction at the heart of NREG implementation." The `Schedule of Rates' by which work done is valued needs reform to "bring it in line with legal entitlements under the NREGA." Shah also rightly points out that average rates do not give room for differences in soil, gender, age, and other factors that have a bearing on productivity. In Dungarpur, this aspect was also stressed by K. Raju, Principal Secretary Government of Andhra Pradesh, who said there was a need to quantify actual productivity in every district through work-time-motion studies, and for tasks to be fixed according to soil conditions so that every worker can earn the minimum wage in seven hours. Interestingly, it is reported that Andhra Pradesh has recently revised the schedule of rates on such task-related norms.

Apart from this, there were other problems that the Dungarpur social audit revealed, such as the lack of adequate administrative staff, which affected the NREGA implementation. An observer from Andhra Pradesh also reported that there was no work available in some villages and the people had to travel to neighbouring villages to find it. However, Jean Dreze says, "With the activation of the administrative machinery, employment is being generated on an unprecedented scale. This has never happened before, outside periods of severe drought (and) further employment opportunities are likely to be created through `multiplier effects', as NREGA wages represent a big injection of purchasing power in this district, where non-agricultural economic activities are few and far between."

The NREGA also represents an opportunity for asset creation, according to academic and social activist Reetika Khera. Unless work was seen as being productive by the villagers themselves, it would not be useful. Creating water harvesting facilities and making roads and bunds would enhance the economic productivity of the region. Reetika Khera points out, "the usefulness of works undertaken through the NREGA can be enhanced considerably if shelf of works are evolved with greater public participation." Man Singh of the Wagad Mazdoor Kisan Sangathan stressed the primacy of water harvesting projects and recommended that the work under NREGA should ultimately enhance all land and not just public land.

Raja Kutty, Director of the National Institute of Rural Development, said that while the social audit revealed many positive trends, several administrative and policy issues remain that have to be squarely dealt with. In the context of a fairly responsive and sensitive local government in Dungarpur, these issues could be raised and corrective measures could be evolved because of continuous monitoring. As Nikhil Dey emphasised, the gram sabhas should monitor work under NREGA every six months and take up the responsibility of examining records, checking muster rolls, looking at expenditure, and assessing work site situations.

Whatever the problems, the experience of Dungarpur can be replicated across the country if there is a strong commitment from various stakeholders involved in rural governance. The Dungarpur social audit clearly demonstrates that with public monitoring, transparency of administrative functioning, and an empowered population, not only is corruption minimised, but development that transforms the lives of the poor is an attainable reality.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

U.S. joins India's Moon mission
In the grip of a heatwave
Employment guarantee — signs of transformation
Blairism's failure: private delivery of public goods
Corrections and Clarifications
Justice for Dalits still a dream
BBC's coverage comes under fire
Different depictions of Robert Mugabe
Unconcerned move
Exit poll
Undernourished society
Unconvincing

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu