Date:08/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/08/stories/2004120802041300.htm

National

It is a toothless guarantee, says Left

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 7. The ``revised'' National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill — that the Government proposes to introduce in this session of Parliament — came in for criticism today from the Left parties, two members of the National Advisory Council (NAC), and the former Prime Minister, V. P. Singh. Describing the ``revised draft'' as a ``non-starter,'' the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India said the Bill in its current form offered a ``toothless guarantee.''

Addressing a joint press conference here, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Sitaram Yechury, said a national Employment Guarantee Act (EGA) providing a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment on asset-creating public works programme annually at a minimum wage for every rural household was not a promise made by the Left in their election manifestos but a commitment made by the Congress in its manifesto.

"Going back"

``When discussions on the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) were going on, it was taken on board. Now, by diluting it, the Government is going back on an election promise and a commitment made in the NCMP which is now a policy document,'' Mr. Yechury said. Chipping in, NAC member Aruna Roy quoted the NCMP in which the UPA committed itself to implement a National EGA not just for every rural household but ``at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middleclass household.''

Now, the proposed legislation has been diluted on every count, they said. Referring to the preamble of the Bill, as per which the legislation seeks to ``enhance livelihood security of poor households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour,'' Mr. Yechury said it was fraught with danger as it may be confined only to registered Below Poverty Line families.

The NAC draft said it would ``safeguard the right to work by providing guaranteed employment at the statutory minimum wage to at least one adult per household who volunteers to do casual manual labour in rural areas.'' A new draft provision allowed the incumbent government to ``switch off'' the employment guarantee anywhere at any time.

The CPI secretary, D. Raja, who met the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, today amid apprehensions that the Bill would not be introduced this session, said he had been informed that it would be done by middle of this month. This apart, all present at the press conference said the EGA should be fully funded by the Centre as leaving its funding to States would negate its purpose. Calculating the potential impact of EGA on rural poverty on the basis of NAC's suggestion, member Jean Dreze said the proportion of rural poor below the poverty line with additional earnings of Rs. 6,000 per household a year (equivalent to 100 days of employment at Rs. 60 a day) would come down from 27.2 per cent to 9.4 per cent.