Food for work

THE REPORTS OF starvation deaths in western Orissa have catalysed the Central Government and political parties into examining how to mitigate rural malnutrition. It should not have taken these deaths - about which there has been an appallingly callous exercise in semantics of whether they were the result of starvation or malnutrition - for such a discussion to suddenly take place, especially since the pile up of 62 million tonnes of cereals so obviously shows that the means to mitigate malnutrition are available in abundance. But belated as the realisation has been, some useful ideas have been thrown up in recent weeks, foremost among them being the renewed emphasis on the role of food- for-work programmes which has been articulated in some detail by the Congress(I). On Independence Day, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, did also announce a new and expanded food-for-work programme, but the silence since August 15 suggests that the proposed Rs. 10,000-crore Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) could go the way of the many schemes that surface only as announcements on special occasions.

What makes food-for-work programmes especially relevant today is, of course, the mountains of cereal with the Food Corporation of India. But, in general, such programmes have an extremely useful role to play in providing food security, supplementing the income of unskilled labour and in creation of rural economic and social infrastructure. While they work best during the lean agricultural season when rural labour needs work the most, they could be an important source of income for labour in the dry areas of the country where rural employment opportunities are inadequate throughout the year. The challenges in administering most rural employment schemes apply to food-for-work schemes as well; the most important of these is the checking of corruption, monitoring the payment of minimum wages and ensuring the quality of assets created. However, none of these challenges are insurmountable and are usually just excuses to give short shrift to such schemes. Today, the availability of huge food stocks removes one constraint on financing a large-scale food-for-work programme, but the other - a shortage of funds with the State Governments - has prevented its widespread implementation. Contrary to what its name implies, a food-for-work programme involves a cash component of more than 50 per cent in the total outlay since wages have to be paid partly in cash and there is the expenditure on materials that has to be incurred, both of which are largely the responsibility of the States. The lack of funds or the unwillingness of State Governments to find the cash resources has meant that even when cereals are given free by the Centre, the implementation of the food-for-work programmes has been extremely tardy. Over the past year, for example, less than two-thirds of the 2.2 million tonnes given to food-for-work programmes in eight drought-affected States was utilised. There is therefore a need to develop a new funding mechanism for these schemes, involving partially or entirely additional funds from the Centre. At this stage the proposed SGRY looks like it will be organised as in past similar schemes - with cereals from the Centre and funds from the States - and this could doom it to failure at the very beginning.

The overflowing granaries have brought food-for-work programmes back into focus. But as the Congress party delegation which met Mr. Vajpayee pointed out, such a programme should not be an annual fire-fighting exercise but should be an integral part of a medium-term plan for food security and employment. It is not impossible to devise food-for-work programmes which even in the absence of food mountains with the FCI would channel government- procured grain to activities that guarantee work to at least one adult member of every family. Last but not least, it should not be forgotten that a large-scale national programme will also help revive growth in rural India after a decade of neglect.

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Section  : Opinion
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