Bidar: "Vested interests and large farmers are opposing the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act across the country. It is the responsibility of labour unions and trade unions to engage in a struggle to see that they do not succeed," feels Goutham Mody, secretary of a New Delhi-based New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI). He was here to participate in a district labour union workers meeting.

The NTUI, which is campaigning for better implementation of the Act, has formed labour unions in 14 districts in seven States.

The NTUI believed in communist ideology but was not affiliated to any Left party, he said.

In an interview to The Hindu, he explained the intentions behind the enactment of the law, its provisions and its actual implementation.

"We should understand why we needed the law. There is a crisis in rural areas now. Work and its remuneration are slowly reducing. There are far too many people dependent on agriculture and underemployment is rampant. Neither welfare schemes nor migration to cities have offered any permanent solution. This can be tackled only by creating guaranteed employment opportunities for everyone in rural areas. This will not only provide sustenance to a large number of families but also lead to an increase in rural wages due to competition," Mr. Mody said.

Mr. Mody, who has toured six States of the seven in which the employment guarantee scheme is being implemented, feels the scheme is being better implemented in industrialised States. The implementation has suffered in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In Madhya Pradesh, success came only after a sustained agitation by the trade unions. "We are convinced that trade unions should work hard to spoil the designs of vested interests opposed to the scheme," he said.

The NTUI is not unhappy with the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka. "We, however, want the Government to publicise the scheme. We also want it to provide more information to the people about the advantages of the scheme," he said.

In Karnataka and elsewhere, the NTUI is training its workers to document all instances of failure on the implementation front.

"We tell our activists to register complaints with the authorities about deficiencies in implementation and keep a record of such complaints. These will form the basic documents for our future struggles," he said.

Formats of complaints have been issued to our workers who will distribute them to labourers.

"We will not only help the labourers lodge complaints to the authorities and follow them up but also build a data base of such complaints across the country," he said.

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