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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Where development hasn’t quite reached by Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan

Where development hasn’t quite reached by Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan

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published Published on Nov 16, 2011   modified Modified on Nov 16, 2011

After being mired in controversies across the nation over multi-crore scams, the MGNREGA scheme hasn’t quite made headway in Bulandshahr district’s Anupshahr yet, say Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan

“MGNREGA is a flop in Uttar Pradesh,” extended NGO worker Manish Sharma, as small talk, at the block development office of Anupshahr in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. Despite having been in force since 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the block is yet to spread its wings and take off.

Recently, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh wrote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati criticising MGNREGA implementation in the state, and the twisting of the Act into a money-siphoning enterprise, involving scams worth crores. However, Bulandshahr didn’t feature amongst the seven districts Ramesh mentioned in his letter. Forget the scams, for to the villagers in Bulandshahr’s Anupshahr block, MGNREGA is virtually non-existent.

In the village of Sunai, 263 people officially hold job cards and records state that so far 40 have been employed in 2011. Take for instance Puspendra who is an average job cardholder. We meet him in front of a two-storeyed house that spreads out like an ornate centrepiece in an otherwise largely poor village. Sitting with a careful swagger in his large porch, he tells us with a slightly twisted smile, about how the scheme is a bonafide success in his village providing employment and monetary relief. He claims to have worked for 80 days under the scheme. He looks the other way not particularly perturbed when we inform that the records count his days of work to be 12 rather than 80.

In Sunai, the MGNREGA work done over the past year as per the papers acquired from the block office is mainly the work done under the Free Boring Scheme. Under this scheme, farmers with less than two hectares of land can apply for subsidised boring. Some confusion persists on whether this work fits into the MGNREGA wage-material ratio of 60:40, as stated in its non-negotiable consideration. As per some of the villagers we spoke to, many of those who are listed to have done manual labour in these projects happen to be contractors. This also is in opposition to the non-negotiable list, which states that work should not involve contractors.

Puspendra was paid about Rs.5000 this year and many of his fellow contractors in the village are listed as having worked on a boring installation in the house of one Munni Devi. Curiously it turns out that Munni Devi who drives a bullock cart for a living, and a resident of the colony reserved for the Jaatav community, doesn't own land nor has she heard of MGNREGA.

When job cards are in the possession of those with power, funds are manipulated and records fudged. This, however, is just one indicative discrepancy of the implementation of a law that has several. Devender Kumar, the Pradhan of Sunai, makes sugarcoated excuses to explain the dormancy of MGNREGA in his village. However, the fact remains that little help has come his way to create enough work that would gainfully engage the villagers. Among other things, there was a glaring lack of imagination about the kind of work that could be generated, say for example, the building of percolation tanks, check dams etc. How long can MGNREGA be just about the lifting of mud to buildkaccha roads? The act is in some sense orphaned since it is in desperate need of guidance with thinking, organisation and overseeing.

In states like Kerala, where the MGNREGA implementation is reportedly more efficient, there are NGOs that work exclusively on how to utilise the act best for building public infrastructure. Here is an ambitious law working in a flawed system, for nowhere has the administration spared a thought for the infrastructure that would ensure the successful implementation of the Act. For instance, MGNREGA work sites are supposed to have crèche facilities for women employees. The provision is far from an implemented reality in this corner of western UP.

Besides suffering from many circumstantial and administrative bottlenecks, what seems to be the biggest roadblock in the way of MGNREGA’s working is the age-old institution of caste. In many parts of the country, caste is still the biggest deal breaker—overpowering religion and economics. Take Garhara village for instance. Twenty people in Garhara are registered job cardholders. Two years ago, when we spoke to the Pradhan, he said nobody in the village needed to work because they were all Thakurs (high caste). “People will go to Delhi and work with gobar for all you care even if the wage is Rs 100 a day but they will not work in the village. It is a matter of izzat. We are Thakurs,” said Shiv Kumar.

When one looks at what benefits the ‘hallowed’ act has brought about in this village, the results fail to surprise. A half constructed pond, dry and thick with undergrowth is all there is to show for outcome. Two years ago, the pond project was the act’s achievement in the village, as it is today. (Villagers from the nearby Bacchi Kheda village had worked on it.) Two years later, the pond looks pretty much the same—unfinished and weed ridden.

The MGNREGA, named after Mahatma Gandhi, also shares his vision of creating sustainable local economies. It hopes to check migration of rural population to urban centres. However, in cases such as Garhara’s, there are many complex social realities that prevent the process.

Manoj, at the block office, has been the man responsible for computerising all MGNREGA records over the past two years. He says with a chuckle, while flipping through records he is printing for us, that among the 66 villages that were enlisted under the Anupshahr block only four persons had gotten 100 days of employment under the Act.

Three were from the village of Bagsara, the apparent relative success story that seemed to surprise even the officer as he reviewed the data. In a block with 66 villages, and an average population of about 2500 people per village (a conservative estimate)—1, 65,000 people overall—only four had supposedly gained the promised hundred days of employment.

In Bagsara, on being told that theirs was the only village that managed to have the maximum number of 100 days employment holders, the people we spoke to exchanged knowing looks. Two of the three members were not in the village at the time, while the third—Pavitra, a relative of the Pradhan, and a woman of crisp rehearsed sentences was the only female job cardholder in the village to have received Rs 10,000 under the scheme. On being asked about the work she had done, the answers that came our way sounded vague and had to be prompted numerous times by other family members.

So, while the scheme continues to be throttled under lack of implementation, Hukum Singh works for Rs. 1000 every month, delivering mid-day meals to three different schools, two outside of the village. That is less than Rs. 40 a day. Guddi, 27, pregnant with her 8th child earns Rs. 10 from embroidery. Her husband who is physically challenged earns Rs. 40 a day. MGNREGA in its visionary written form includes livelihood options for the physically challenged too, but the clean white empty pages of the couple’s job card displayed a reality where such reforms were still Utopian.

There were countless other such stories. From the Widow Pension Scheme to Government sponsored subsidies for the purchase of seeds and fertilizers to the opening of bank accounts and mid-day meals, all come with the added baggage of impenetrable bureaucracy and corruption. A law alone is ill-equipped, regardless of howsoever radical and ambitious it may be, to wrestle with such existing social circumstances.

Hierarchies are rigid here, but also on display was the quirky humour, anger and flippancy with which the disenfranchised negotiated these power blocks. While we spoke to Puspendra and others like him about the discrepancies in their version of how things worked, many a passer-by let slip snide comments about the greased palms that controlled the functioning of things.

As the sun set on Sunai, with the air still weighing heavy from the stories and statistics, one figure stood out. The national budget for MGNREGA this year is Rs 40100 crores.

Yamini Deendayalan is a Features Correspondent with Tehelka. 
yamini@tehelka.com

Bhamati Sivapalan is a Video Correspondent with Tehelka.com. 
bhamati@tehelka.com
 
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Labourers to be paid in cash to avoid late payments

Tehelka.com Bureau 
New Delhi

In a move to tackle delay of payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MG-NREGA), the Ministry of Rural Development has decided to pay wages in cash.

“We must allow cash payments in some of the most affected Naxal areas” said Union minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh. The minister added that cash payments would be recorded on video. The labourers currently collect wages from their accounts in post offices, or banks. He was speaking at the event "Ministry of Rural Development and United Nations Development Programme empowering live through MG-NREGA: Strengthening the reform agenda" here on Monday.

Describing the delay of payments as the biggest problem plaguing MG-NREGA, the minister said that the demand for work under MG-NREGA was going down in those areas where Workers have not been paid. “In regions like Dantewada, Bastar, Bijapur and Narayanpur where demand for work should be high, it has actually gone down, and in some cases workers have not been paid since the last seven months.”

Ramesh added that in the short term, there was no alternative but to go for cash payments particularly in Naxal-affected areas. The ministry has been advocating development in the country's 60 Left Wing Extremism districts. Payment through cash was done at the inception of MG-NREGA only to be stopped when complaints of irregularities started pouring in. Subsequently, the government opened bank accounts for workers to avoid financial mismanagement. Tamil Nadu is the only state where wages are disbursed in cash.

Experts say that paying wages in cash will be useful in regions where banks do not operate or there are no post offices. But they said financial irregularities could again be a problem.

Stressing on the need to improve the banking infrastructure, Ramesh said that long-term solution was to improve the banking and postal infrastructure. “The banking model will work in urban areas but not in rural districts where there are no banks.”

On the asset creation fund, the minister said that road building under MG-NREGA should be discouraged and focus should be more on land and water management assets. “Too much of focus on road building is not healthy because these roads will not last for more than two to three seasons,” said Ramesh.

Highlighting the positives of the MG-NREGA, Ramesh said that agricultural wages had gone up because of the scheme. “The hike in wages has created a backlash and many big farmers have declared crop holidays, and many politically linked farmers and political leaders now want MG-NREGA to be linked to agriculture” said Ramesh. 

Tehelka, 14 November 2011, http://tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws141111MGNREGA.asp#


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