Employment guarantee: unfinished agenda (The Hindu)
Rajasthan is far ahead of other States in providing employment under the NREGA. The bad news is that people are paid much less than the minimum wage.
Among all major States, Rajasthan comes first in terms of employment generation per rural household under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). In 2006-07, the average rural household in Rajasthan's six 'NREGA Districts' worked for as many as 77 days under this programme, earning nearly Rs.4,000 in the process. This is an unprecedented achievement in the history of social security in India.
Further, disadvantaged sections of the population are the
main gainers. The share of women in NREGA employment is around two-thirds in
Rajasthan, and that of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households is as
high as 80 per cent. In this and other ways, the Act contributes to social equity
and economic redistribution.
These figures are based on official data released by the Ministry of Rural Development, but they are fully consistent with independent reports, as well as with our own experience from Dungarpur district in April 2006.
More recently, on July 2 and 3, 2007, we conducted a brief
investigation of the NREGA in Jhalawar district. We visited three blocks (Bakani,
Dag, and Sunel), verified job cards and muster rolls in half a dozen villages,
and had detailed discussions with labourers, mates, sarpanchs, gram panchayat
secretaries, engineers, programme officers, and block development officers,
among others.
In Bakani, we selected three muster rolls at random among those available at the block office, and 'verified' them with the labourers concerned. We interviewed about 20 labourers who had worked on these worksites. In each case, the muster roll details matched with the job card details, and the labourers confirmed that the details were correct. Further, there was no evidence of 'fake names' having been entered in the muster rolls. This reinforces the findings of earlier investigations in Dungarpur district, suggesting that 'fudging' of muster rolls is rare in Rajasthan today.
'Transparency safeguards'
This achievement is clearly related to the enforcement of the NREGA's 'transparency safeguards.' For instance, the labourers we met confirmed that the muster rolls were available at the worksites, and that attendance details were written in the muster rolls on the spot. Similarly, everywhere we went we found that complete entries had been made in the job cards. These and other safeguards have made it very difficult to 'siphon off' funds from the NREGA — at least from the labour component.
In this respect, Rajasthan is far ahead of other States,
where there are still major lapses in the implementation of transparency guidelines.
Public awareness of various aspects of the NREGA (including the transparency provisions) was also quite high in Jhalawar, in comparison with other States. For instance, labourers were familiar with the muster rolls, and took interest in the job card entries. A culture of checking job cards is also developing, among those who are able to read.
However, there is some bad news also. NREGA labourers in
Jhalawar are earning less than the minimum wage — much less in many cases.
For instance, the muster rolls for village Bhumara (Gram Panchayat Dev Nagar)
showed that all labourers had been paid Rs.50 a day for the most recent pakhwada
(fortnight). In earlier pakhwadas, they had earned even less — as little
as Rs.23 a day for one whole pakhwada. Similarly, in Khadkad (gram panchayat
Salawad), labourers earned wages ranging between Rs.35 and Rs.45 a day for different
pakhwadas.
Further scrutiny of muster rolls at the block office in Bakani, and discussions with the Junior Engineer and other officials, suggest that this situation is by no means unusual. In fact, we did not find a single muster roll showing full payment of minimum wages. This is a flagrant violation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which states that 'under no circumstances shall the labourers be paid less' than the minimum wage. The Supreme Court, for its part, has declared that employing labourers without paying the minimum wage is 'forced labour,' in so far as it amounts to '[taking] advantage of the helpless condition of the affected persons' (Sanjit Roy v. State of Rajasthan, 1983 SCC (1) 525).
In this respect, Rajasthan is in a category of its own. Indeed,
according to official data posted on the website of the Ministry of Rural Development,
the average wage rate paid under the NREGA in 2006-07 was lower in Rajasthan
(Rs.51 a day) than in any other state, and much below the national average of
Rs.65 a day.
It is worth noting that last year, when a full-fledged 'social audit' of the NREGA was conducted in Dungarpur district, low wage payments already emerged as the main problem in an area where the Act was doing quite well otherwise. One year later, this problem persists.
There are also other problems with the NREGA in Rajasthan, such as the shortage of trained staff and lack of participatory planning. But the non-payment of minimum wages is a particularly serious lacuna, which calls for urgent investigation and redress. Extracting hard labour from poor people for as little of Rs.23 a day is a serious violation of constitutional rights. This also threatens to defeat one of the basic purposes of the Employment Guarantee Act — the empowerment of labourers.
