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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Poor labourers pledged Rs 100, get Re 1 for day's work under govt's employment guarantee scheme by Nitin Sethi

Poor workers are being paid wages as low as Rs 1-10 for a hard day's labour in states like Rajasthan and Karnataka under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which promises a real wage of Rs 100 per day. 

Documents with TOI show that many desperate, poor labourers across the country are being cheated of their hard earned money and the much publicized guaranteed daily wage of Rs 100 on many occasions remains a mere illusion. 

The scheme legally entitles any citizen in the hinterland to demand work for 100 days from the government and be paid Rs 100 per day for the work rendered. But documents with TOI show how rules of the scheme have allowed government officials to cheat the people of their day's entitlement. In practice, the promise of guaranteed wage has been supplanted by non-transparent efficiency norms which allow the executing authorities to use discretion to hammer down the wages. 

De-linking the payment under the scheme from minimum wages keeps the wages low to begin with. On top of it, linking it to non-transparent efficiency norms has ensured that the poor can be robbed of their wages under MNREGA, and that it can be done safely under the techno-legal loopholes passing off the inefficiency of the bureaucracy to the poor at the latter's cost. 

Initial reports had suggested just a one-off case of Re 1 being paid to several in Tonk district in Rajasthan. But trawling through hundreds of muster rolls in the state has shown that this is an endemic fraud being perpetrated on the poor in Rajasthan. 

A survey of 249 panchayats in 33 districts of the state carried out by Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan has shown that in 37 panchayats, some people were paid wages between Rs 1-10 in 2011-12. Another 40 panchayats paid between Rs 11-20 to people employed to carry out rural development work under the scheme. In only 7 of the 249 panchayats, scrutinized workers ever got between Rs 91-100 per day for their work in 2011-12. 

The story is as bad in Karanataka. A scrutiny of the muster rolls shows that in Bapur village of Sadapur panchayat in Raichur, people got paid anywhere from Rs 2-11 for carrying out work under the scheme. It is not a one-off case in Karnataka either. The meagre wages have been paid in several districts over the last year, documents with TOI show. 

The shocking discrepancy between the promise and the reality is a pointer to how the details of a scheme can end up defeating the objective it was meant for. In this case, while Rs 100 is publicized as the guaranteed pay, it is actually the maximum the poor can get and it entirely depends on the district administration if the worker will get it at all. Under the scheme, the administration first assesses how much work was done in the day by the labourer on a particular project. This technical assessment takes place days after the labourer has completed his work. The labourer has no room to dispute the assessment and is, thus forced, to settle for whatever has already been put in the banks. More so, because in many cases, the payments reach months after completion of the project. 

Consequently, in several districts of Karnataka and Rajasthan, vigilant activists have found the poor being defrauded of their rightful income. Perhaps the only reasons cases have not been found in other states is that no one has scrutinized thousands of muster rolls generated so far. 

This is in sharp contrast to the fact that UPA government is now fighting a case in the Supreme Court to ensure that it does not have to pay minimum wages fixed by states, which in many cases, Karnataka included, are higher than that prescribed by the Centre for the scheme. It also contrasts with the high pitched arguments about MNREGA stealing away labour from the farms by paying a guaranteed wage of Rs 100 per day. UPA fears paying prescribed minimum wages will be a drain on its coffers. 

Times View 

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme pledges to provide a minimum amount of work to the rural poor on a minimum daily wage. Its purpose is to give some income support to the poor. Similarly, minimum support price for crops is meant to ensure that farmers aren't forced into distress sales. The government is pledged to both - in the case of the NREGS, the pledge is legally binding. Yet, the promises are being violated. This, naturally, undermines the state's credibility. It also draws attention to a moth-eaten, leaky delivery mechanism. It must be fixed. Those being promised deserve better and so do the taxpayers who pay for the schemes.