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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The right to work-Ruhi Tewari

The right to work-Ruhi Tewari

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published Published on Apr 24, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 24, 2012

Difficult times call for difficult measures. Pushed into a corner by an unsustainable fiscal deficit and various sectors and programs (including the proposed food security legislation) screaming for a greater share of the budget pie, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India has been forced to do what it might not have otherwise—reduce its marquee job guarantee scheme’s allocation in a big way for the first time. 

In one of the surprise announcements of India’s union budget for 2012-13 tabled last Friday, the Indian government has significantly downsized the importance of its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) by slashing its allocation by around 17 percent from a whopping Rs 40,000 crore last fiscal to Rs 33,000 crore this year.

Surprising, because this ambitious Act was widely credited for helping the UPA gallop back to power in the 2009 Lok Sabha election as well as several state assembly elections and since its conception, has been carefully nurtured by the Congress as its marquee programme. This has been reflected in the fact that for most part, this scheme has been the single largest social sector spending of this government.

The MGNREGA, launched in February 2006, promises a hundred days of work each year to every rural household at a minimum wage. The scheme, essentially meant to be a safety net and distress redress scheme for the rural poor, is entirely demand driven and is overseen by the ministry of rural development. Of course, apart from fiscal considerations, huge unspent MGNREGA funds from last year were also a factor in the government’s decision.

While the UPA has been finally forced to re-think on its lopsided focus on this Act, it may be a good time to reflect on six years of this legislation and assess its relevance in another developing and primarily rural country—Nepal. Perhaps, an understanding of the various facets of the implementation of the Act in India—both positive and negative—could help determine the feasibility of a similar legislation here.

Nepal, with a predominantly rural population—constituting 83 percent of the total population (according to the preliminary result of National Population Census 2011), has witnessed rising rural poverty, dwindling employment opportunities and hence, forced migration to other countries. According to the abovementioned source, the ‘absentee population’ in Nepal has more than doubled since 2001 and is now over 7 percent of the total population, perhaps a gross underestimation.

One of the greatest achievements of the Act in India, undoubtedly, has been its ability to put more money in the hands of the rural poor and significantly drive up purchasing power. By providing a safety net even during lean agricultural periods, MGNREGA has in many instances, helped not just sustain but also boost the rural economy. 

By creating employment within the village, the scheme has also succeeded in reducing distress migration to an appreciable extent with entire families no longer forced to live in deplorable conditions in towns and cities, particularly during lean periods. 

Nepal faces a paradoxical situation where on one hand, it is unable to absorb the burgeoning employment seeking youth population in rural areas and on the other, is failing to meet demands for labour in rural pockets for agriculture and local industries. Of course, the two are correlated with the former forcing most young rural men to migrate to other countries for employment, thus leading to the latter situation. 

An employment guarantee legislation could go a long way in retaining the workforce which can seek a safety net of jobs under the scheme during lean periods and be available for more paying agricultural and industrial jobs during periods of relative boom.

There is also little doubt that agricultural wages have gone up in India following an assured job under the scheme, giving the rural poor much needed bargaining power. The legislation also helps the rural poor economically by not just putting cash in their hands, but also helping them create sustainable assets. With the focus of the Act being on creating opportunities of manual work by building community assets, there has been a visible increase in useful public resources like dams, water ponds, roads and anicuts in villages.

To be sure, an underlying feature of the scheme has been marked regional disparities in its implementation. This author’s travels across many states in India to report on the scheme have found its execution oscillating between extremes with it being close to a success in states like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu while proving to be almost elusive in many states such as Orissa, Jharkhand and perhaps even Uttar Pradesh.

However, despite its skewed performance map, the scheme’s greatest and undeniable achievement has been not on the economic front, but in reworking social dynamics in the form of the intangibles it has delivered. By creating a system that guarantees equal work and equal pay for all sections of the rural poor, this legislation has greatly empowered even the weakest sections who, with assured employment and some semblance of economic standing, are now able to stand up to the local elites and the more powerful sections. 

A case in point being emancipation of women, particularly in the traditionally repressive and feudal rural societies. Ignoring the reality of gender inequalities, it views men and women equally with respect to opportunities for gainful employment as well as wage rates. The Act stipulates the same wages for men and women and is committed to ensuring that at least 33 percent of the workers are women. Women’s participation in the scheme has had a direct impact on education with more families now spending on their children’s education.

Belonging to the same social framework that defines most of South Asia, Nepal has also been witness to similar discrimination against women and an MGNREGA-like Act could, at least to some extent, help extricate rural women from a web of oppression and dependence, giving them economic empowerment and a greater say in household matters.

The first question, however, in the feasibility of such a social legislation in any country is about its fiscal sustenance. Nepal, with its GDP growth rate of around just 3.5 percent, may not yet be able to support such a financially ambitious scheme. For instance, this scheme was not possible for the Indian economy of the 1950s-1980s growing at just around 3 percent. 

Another major concern about the scheme in India has been its spread and reach. While it was initially rolled out in just a few districts, it was eventually extended to all. However, schemes like this should ideally have more focused intervention, like being restricted to only the more poverty-ridden districts. Being executed as a nationwide scheme that promises jobs, it tends to be reduced to just another centrally sponsored program, losing its spirit of being a strictly distress scheme. In India, there have been concerns about the legislation creating a shortage of labor for agriculture, thus fuelling a debate on restricting this scheme to just the lean/non farming/ drought prone periods.

Narrowing down the scope of the legislation would a) perhaps be more fiscally prudent and viable for an economy like Nepal, and b) reduce chances of conflict between traditional rural jobs and the act.

Such an Act, meanwhile, has meant a massive monitoring exercise in India with leakage and corruption proving to be huge stumbling blocks. From social audits to national level monitors, independent evaluators, and now a proposed CAG audit system, this legislation has seen diverse forms of checks and balances and an equal number of ways of deceiving them.

While overall, the employment guarantee Act’s six year experience in India has been the proverbial mixed bag, Nepal—a society very much like India with high degrees of inequalities and pockets of rural distress—could do well to learn from its neighbor’s patchy tryst with the legislation. 

However, most importantly and before it even embarks on conceptualizing such a program, Nepal would do well to ponder over the glaring and ironic absence of a pivotal state agency— the rural development ministry, in a nation characterized by its rural profile.

My Republica, 20 March, 2012, http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=32989


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