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In a Hole: Political realities blunt Narendra Modi’s attack on the NREGA -Manas Roshan
-CaravanMagazine.in

Political realities blunt Narendra Modi’s attack on the NREGA

At the end of December 2015, the central rural development ministry was in a state of panic. Nine of India’s largest states had declared drought in several districts. The scant kharif harvest meant many farm labourers, who might have been employed on fields, went without work. Water was so scarce that many farms weren’t sowing a winter crop, further diminishing employment prospects. In greater numbers than usual, farm workers sought support, as they have done in the past ten years, from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or the NREGA, which guarantees at least 100 days of employment at minimum wage each year to every rural household. In December alone, demand for work under the act was twice what it was over the same month in 2014.

But 95 percent of the funds allocated to the scheme in the budget last March had already been spent. Twelve states, including the drought-hit Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, had spent more money than they had been allotted. This meant that work under the programme could soon grind to a halt. It was under these circumstances that Birendra Singh, the minister for rural development, wrote to the finance minister, Arun Jaitley, seeking additional funds of Rs 5,000 crore. (On 25 February, the journalist Nitin Sethi reported in Business Standard that the centre owed states Rs 5,595 crore for work completed under the scheme.)

Singh’s letter seemed at odds with Modi’s leanings, given how vociferously the prime minister has opposed the programme. While campaigning for the 2014 general elections, Modi used the NREGA as political ammunition against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, declaring in Karnataka, “When the pockets of Congress are full, you can call it NREGA.” At other times, he offered incomprehensible policy alternatives, such as changing the programme’s name from an “employment” guarantee scheme to a “development” guarantee scheme.

On entering office, Modi didn’t immediately decide on the fate of the programme. But the new government’s lack of enthusiasm was evident. While around 50 percent of all payments to workers were delayed in 2013, this figure rose to 70 percent at the end of Modi’s first year in power. The rural development ministry, which administers the programme, posted an explanation on its website in January 2015, and cited several administrative bottlenecks, including the centre’s failure to transfer funds to the states in time. It also singled out negative comments made by Singh’s predecessor, Nitin Gadkari, who had proposed to limit the programme to the country’s poorest 200 districts and restrict spending on wages. The ministry’s note said Gadkari’s remarks had caused “psychological” damage, and “fear that the programme would be wound up” or that “money won’t come.” (It would later modify the note to remove Gadkari’s name and blame the media instead.)

Modi finally spelled out his intentions for the NREGA in parliament, during the budget session in February 2015. Claiming to have better political sense than to scrap the programme, he said he’d keep it running because “it is a living monument to the failure of the Congress party.” His party members whooped and thumped their desks as he went on contemptuously: “After 60 years, people are still made to dig holes in the ground.”

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