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Interviews | Prof. Reetika Khera interviewed by The Economic Times

Prof. Reetika Khera interviewed by The Economic Times

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published Published on Jul 23, 2011   modified Modified on Jul 23, 2011

Matter begins: What is the impact of the National Rural Employment Guarentee Act on rural wages? That is the question that the pundits are asking today. It's a query which feeds into a larger question. Six years have passed since NREGA became a legal reality. What is its village-level impact? It's a complex question to answer. NREGA undertakes to provide employment to anyone who asks for it. Which makes it social and political dynamite. Unsurprising therefore that, in these six years, India -- rich and poor in villages, political parties, state governments, the centre, senior and junior bureaucrats -- has responded in myriad ways to the Act.

In the villages, for instance, SCs, STs and women have turned in increasing numbers to NREGA worksites. In the process, labour relations in villages between larger farmers and the village poor are changing. At the same time, more candidates are vying than before to become the village sarpanch -- in no small part due to programmes like NREGA which are run by the panchayat. Or take the Centre. It is grappling with the states for control over NREGA wage rates.

A new book, The Battle for Employment Guarentee, edited by IIT Delhi professor Reetika Khera , takes a look at NREGA's first six years. Excerpts from an email interview.

Q. I wanted to start by asking you about the village level impact of NREGA. The book says that SCs, STs and women have turned most sizably towards NREGA. Why are they the ones turning most to NREGA?

A. NREGA is an appealing programme because it combines the principle of universal benefits (any adult living in rural areas is eligible for NREGA work) with a strong element of self-targeting. The non-poor tend to automatically say no to NREGA because here they have to work (dig a well, build a road) to get benefits. (By contrast, in the PDS, the non-poor only have to ensure that they get classified as BPL and then they can buy subsidized grain.) So, in NREGA the better-off tend to opt out of the programme, leaving more disadvantaged people - including the groups you listed (SCs, STs, women) - on NREGA worksites.

Q . There is a perception amongst senior bureaucrats and large farmers that NREGA is responsible for wage inflation. Do you see any evidence of that? How does one reconcile these statements about wage inflation and empowerment with the fact that NREGA provided employment, as in 2009-10, for just 54 days? That leaves over 300 days when the SCs, STs and women have to depend on village elite for employment.

A. One of the most significant impacts of NREGA is that, at its worksites, the payment of the statutory minimum wage is becoming the norm (One notable exception here is Rajasthan where the minimum wage act is routinely violated).

This is a big achievement. One of the objectives of NREGA was to increase the bargaining power of rural labour who often earned next to nothing. For instance, during a survey in 2005, a couple in rural Sonebhadra reported getting Rs 48 for 19 days of work! Exploitation of this type is becoming rare and NREGA has definitely played a role in that.

You say that 53 days of NREGA employment is too little. In a sense, I agree because I suspect that the actual demand is much higher. On the other hand, 53 days of employment - in one's own village, at the minimum wage - means something for a poor family. In Bihar in 2008, labourers who were getting 10-20 days of NREGA employment told us that it had made a big difference in their lives.

You may wonder how so little can matter so much. That's because the alternatives for NREGA workers are very unattractive. For instance, migrating to work in brick kilns, or as agricultural labour, often to another state, without proper shelter for your family, captive in the hands of the "thekedar" who takes you there for 2-3 months at a stretch. On the other hand, if 10-20 days of work at Rs 100 per day is available locally, labourers can combine it with work on their own lands or even as poorly paid agricultural labourers locally and stay with their families.

The impact of NREGA on increase in real wages has not been studied properly yet. Where there has been an upward pressure on wages, NREGA's contribution has been to end the sort of exploitation we saw in 2005 in Sonebhadra. I don't think that's a bad thing - for "inclusive growth" the incomes of the poor will have to rise!

Q In its first six years, some states have implemented NREGA assiduously. Elsewhere, NREGA is rife with corruption and provides very few man-days of employment. Why are some states better at implementing NREGA than others?

A. A small correction first. Given that approximately half of NREGA work is performed by women, it is better to use the term "persondays" rather than "mandays".

Coming to the contrasts at the state-level in the implementation of NREGA, its not so easy to explain but four things do matter - "demand" for the programme in terms of poverty; public mobilization; administrative capacity; and political will. Think of the states that have done well: Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh - all of them have these in varying degrees. For instance, Rajasthan suffers from frequent droughts, it had a lot of experience in implementing drought relief works (earlier avataar of NREGA). So, when NREGA was passed, Rajasthan was ready. The result is that nearly a fifth of the total NREGA budget is spent in Rajasthan.

Political will matters a lot. Look at UP. Before Mayawati, nothing happened. Initially, even she discounted NREGA as a Congress programme. Then things began to change -- first, the minimum wage was increased from Rs 58 to Rs 80 to Rs 100, in less than one year. Second, an order was issued instructing all District Magistrates in UP to ensure that there is at least one on-going work in each Gram Panchayat. Slowly, NREGA began to splutter to life in UP -- though, it remains far from being an ideal state. Bihar is a good counter-example to UP. Being one of the poorest states, NREGA is almost non-existent there - many still don't have job cards!

Q. Why is Bihar lagging ?

A. In Bihar, I would squarely put the blame on lack of political will. The CM has managed to convince the world of his "development" agenda - without doing anything concrete for PDS or NREGA. Why would he now bother to do anything?"

Q. How do you see the recent standoff between the centre and the states -- on who gets to set the NREGA wage rate -- playing out?

A. Under NREGA, the central government pays the full wage bill. But, the power of fixing minimum wage rates was with state governments. This got the central government worried. But you can't use NREGA to undermine the Minimum Wages Act. The delinking of NREGA wages from the Minimum Wages Act needs to be reversed immediately. There can be some norms regarding frequency of revisions and scale of revision. Eg., state minimum wages can apply, and states can revise them, say, annually using the state CPIAL.

Q In other words, the answer might lie in fixing how minimum wages are set instead?

A. Minimum wages - indexed to the consumer price index for agri labourers - are the way forward.

Q. The first six years have NREGA have been good and bad. Payments though banks and post offices, as the book says, is an improvement upon the previous system where the contractor used to pay. At the same time, corruption continues to be rife in some states, the quality of assets is poor. What would you say are the main challenges before NREGA today?

A. The transition to bank payments made a big dent on wage corruption. Today, however, delays in the payment of wages are the biggest challenge. These delays became especially severe when the transition to bank/post office payments was made. That made corruption harder. Some NREGA functionaries lost interest in the programme. In many places, the hasty and haphazard transition created a jam in the banking system, one that is only now beginning to ease. The Centre has also contributed to delays by delaying release of funds.

For at least two years, the ministry has been aware of the problem. It has done next to nothing - save some, easily subverted, cosmetic attempts. For instance, it became mandatory to enter the date of work in the MIS at the time of entering muster roll data to enable better monitoring. In many states, data entry operators have been instructed to "hide" these delays. They fudge the date of work - for a muster roll being entered today, the date of work is put down as yesterday no matter when it was actually done. Mates (who fill muster rolls) are told that if they enter the correct date on the muster roll, their muster roll will be rejected. As a result, only a very small fraction of the delays can be tracked through the MIS. Even in those, no further action is taken!

Q . There also seems to be a slowdown in the number of workdays that NREGA is generating. And there is a similar slowdown in the percentage of works completed. What explains this?

A. I would attribute the slowdown in employment generation in the last financial year to the arbitrariness in release of funds by the Centre. On the ground, this has translated into huge delays in the payment of wages. The large number of incomplete works are also related to these delays. For instance, in Jharkhand, thousands of NREGA wells were being constructed. As wages were delayed, the wells could not be completed before the monsoon set in. Several wells have already collapsed and hundreds more are likely to collapse in the coming months.

Q. What about the Centre-State dynamic, in the context of the previous question? We do have a situation where the Congress is strong in the centre but weak in most states. Is that impacting NREGA?

A. In the past year or so, the Central government has wilfully withheld NREGA funds. Recently, a district level offical in Jharkhand told us that in 2006 (the first year of implementation of NREGA), the district was given Rs 150 crores over nine months. By contrast, this year, after haggling for six months, they managed to get Rs 5 crores! Recently, a newspaper reported "NREGA unspent funds to cheer up Centre". In 2010-11, Rs. 15000 crores out Rs. 40,000 crores allocated to NREGA, remained unspent. This is bad news for NREGA workers. Cheery headlines apart, unspent NREGA funds are unlikely to be good news for the Congress/Centre.
 
 

The Economic Times, 22 July, 2011, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-22/news/29803369_1_nrega-rural-wages-minimum-wage

Tagged with: Labour NREGS



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