Poverty Eradication through National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

August 17, 2018 admin 0 Comments National Rural Employment, NREGA, Poverty Eradication

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, entitles rural households to 100 days of casual employment on public works at the statutory minimum wage. To provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the poor households in rural areas of the Country by guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adults members volunteer to do unskilled manual work and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Recently, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’s name has changed to Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Scheme. This employment guarantee scheme is a law, whereas all the earlier ones were schemes. Schemes come and go, but laws are durable. This paper examines the provisions of the Act, and socio-economic consequences and also how it has reduced the intensity of poverty and increased the food security of India. However, it could be a key instrument to be used simultaneously in tackling poverty and development of agriculturally backward and under-developed rural areas.

“ To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form of God can dare appear is to work and promise of food and wages. ”

—–M.K. Gandhi

Introduction

In India, the provision of employment has been extensively used as a tool of entitlement protection for many centuries. From the fourth century BC when the ancient Indian political economist, Kautilya, wrote his Arthasastra, there has been emphasis on public works, particularly at times of famine, and employment on public works later became the main and most effective element of strategies for famine prevention After independence in1947, may schemes were sponsored by the Central Government.

In August 2005, Parliament passed the landmark legislation, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act .The NREGA is a national law funded largely by the central government and implemented in all states, which creates a justiciable “ right to work “ for all households in rural India. Under the NREGA, rural households have a legal right to get “ not less than 100 days ” of unskilled manual labour on public works in each financial year.

The enactment of the NREGA in 2005 came about partly as a result of a sustained campaign by academics and activists across India. Significant efforts were made by campaign groups to high-light the crisis of food and work availability being faced by large numbers of the rural poor in India. The NREGA, as finally enacted, was a diluted version of the citizen’s draft, Nevertheless it signified a huge step forward as a social security mechanism for the rural poor.

Main Provisions of the NREGA

NREGA is a remarkable legislation under which local administrations are legally bound to provide work on demand to any worker or group of workers who apply for work, within 15 days of receipt of a work application on public works, operated under the NREGA. Though the list of permissible works under the NREGA is quite restricted, there is ample scope for undertaking projects that provide economically useful assets. In the event that the local administration fails to provide work, an unemployment allowance is to be paid to the workers. The NREGA promises “ not less than 100 days“ of work to all households in rural India in each financial year where adults in the household are willing to undertake unskilled manual labour at the statutory minimum wage.

The wage earned is equal for both men and women. The Act mandates that at least one-third of the workers should be women. This, combined with the fact that the Act places no restriction on how each households ‘ quota of 100 days is shared within the household, means that there is ample scope for women’s participation in NREGA works. The NREGA also provides for childcare facilities at the worksite when more than five children under six years of age are present at the worksite. This is an important provision given that, in large parts of the country, there are no childcare arrangements for working women.

The NREGA was rolled out in three phases. Starting with 200 districts in 2006-07, 130 districts were added in 2007-08, and NREGA was extended to the entire country in April 2008.

Impact on Poverty

The best way to create opportunities for employment and reduce poverty is through single-mindedly pursuing growth-promoting strategies, growth promotes employment, and employment reduces poverty. Therefore, see expenditure on targeted poverty reduction measures as a welfare measure, which, by reducing investment in the economy, reduces growth, and therefore growth of employment in the long run.

The expenditure on boosting the incomes of the poor will have the salutary effect of raising demand, particularly for the goods and services consumed by the poor. This will have the effect of raising demand for food and other rurally produced goods, with beneficial consequences to agriculture that is stagnating. The raising incomes of the poor, it will have a beneficial impact on the education and health of the poor, and therefore, on productivity. The greater employment in rural areas will also change the political dynamic, by empowering the poor, it helps them to bargain for better wages, and put greater pressure on the public institutions for better delivery of public services. And, depending on how the Employment Guarantee Act is delivered, it might also empower local government and strengthen democracy. They thus believe that EGA should be seen as a pro-poor growth measure, and not necessarily distracting from growth objective, and it might have the additional benefit of strengthening the democratic fabric.

By making employment an entitlement, the Employment Guarantee Scheme(EGS) facilitates collective political action by the poor and promotes the realization of their common interests. The EGS can be viewed more as a cause than an effect of the power of the poor. It also makes rural politicians more responsive to their demands. It provides them with opportunities for effective active and encourages the mobilization of their political resources. A Number of organisiations have arise among the poor to help to NREGA employment.

EGS works have made a considerable impact on the social life of the participants. Concentrating a large number of workers in one place under similar conditions and increasing their interaction helps to break down social differences. This may have helped to improve social understanding of workers from various castes. The EGS also discourages sexual barriers and inequality. The emergence of women in large numbers in EGS activities has created confidence among them. Woman now dress better and their economic power has also given them a better status in their families.

Poverty removal programme is fundamentally related to growth of infrastructure like transport, communication, power generation, water resource management, education, health, sanitation, man-power build-up, etc. It is not only that such development process itself will create employment opportunities, but also that it will prepare the ground for much larger productivity in primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors helping reduction of poverty and unemployment.

Limitations of NREGA

In the employment provided under the famine code, the workers reported at the worksite and it was the responsibility of the official to provide work based on their individual capacity. Once the name entered the muster roll and the worker did the entrusted task, he/she was entitled to receive the minimum wage. The purpose was to address the concerns of the needy and those in distress. Any number of people from a household, regardless of their physical condition, could avail employment. Labour was valued and in demand. In earlier employment schemes, there was no need for a job card and work was available for everyone in the family, with no restrictions on the number of days. Thus public employment helped the sections of people in distress to get back to full-work capacity in good health to serve the market.

The Act, in many ways is not much cause for celebration. Rather than advance the struggles and victories of the workers, it has actually trimmed them. A guarantee of 100 days of employment in a year for a household at minimum wages cannot help much in lifting the members of the household to above poverty levels. It overlooks the need for higher employment, living wage and attendant measures in areas of extreme poverty, agricultural backwardness and that face nature’s wrath. There is silence on the mechanisms to ensure even minimum wages, and productivity norms are pegged to the standard schedule of rates, virtually a creation of contractors used to using labour saving machinery.

In government irrigation projects, there is an explicit provision and money provided to the contractor for work place and abode facilities for the workers. They include housing, regular health check and food provisioning. All that the workers benefit by the NREGA, if at all provided, is shade, drinking water and crèche. There is no food provisioning while such items are facing the highest inflation. The government has gone against its own commitment of linking one aspect of poverty redress input with the other, as food is no longer being provided in the NREGA. There is no shoulder to ventilate grievances save the same officials, as there is no appellate authority or dispute settlement mechanism. The Right to Information Act aims to bring in transparency and check the abuse of power and authority. But in the absence of a pro-active provisioning of information in the NREGA, the onus of demanding accountability has been shifted on to the poor, who depend on the same power structure and struggle to survive.

Suggestions

Several measures are necessary for NREGA to be effective and address its potential in tackling poverty, food insecurity and development of degraded natural resources along with broadening and deepening human rights and dignity. And it calls for research, advocacy and policy dialogue. Only when the ambition level incorporates taking it to its potential will communities see the impact and participate in NREGA. While grassroots organizations can help and guide work on field with clarity of purpose, there is a need for synergy and expertise involving different disciplines at another level to succeed in the task.

Tools and skills to widen participation of all needy people in employment schemes and to improve worker productivity and enhance labour dignity.
Broaden SSR and build in factors like site and seasonal variations.
Measures to ensure that an average worker is assured of the minimum wage.
Steps for workers to obtain a living wage.
Innovative works centered on build, incubate and transfer of land, water and soil resources.
Identifying tasks and tools for provision of employment to non-manual workers including how its outturn is to be measured.
Specific tools to provide avenues of employment for the physically challenged, artisans, single women, youth etc and upgrading the skills and capabilities of workers.
Incremental and complete steps to make existing works perform as assets and development of attendant infrastructure.
Prevent misuse of NREGA money by limiting the 40 per cent available for non-manual labour costs and for priority to works on lands belonging to specific categories of people.
Build “quality of service parameters” in social audit as courtesy, responsiveness of officials etc.
People centric outcome indicators on NREGA investments with monitoring progress on the level and direction of economic activity and expected development outputs with social and health indicators.
Involving new stakeholders in-farmers, bankers, traders and investors in planning NREGA works and leading to a public private partnership for a multiplier effect.
Works that can enhance the quality of life in the habitation in terms of internal roads, water, drainage, sanitation, etc.
Attendant policies and investments to ensure NREGA investments succeed in rural development by promoting local lobour market employment including skills.
NREGA working in tandem with other welfare-cum-development schemes-food security, education, old age pensions and
Take forward the NREGA for the poor communities by linking it with constitutional rights and provisions as envisaged in the Directive Principles of State Policy, directives of the Supreme Court decisions and international covenants signed.

Conclusion

A properly implemented NREGA will have considerable economic, social and political significance. To start with, it would protect rural households from poverty and hunger and a full-fledged and effective NREGA through proper investments would enable most rural Indian poor households to improve their livelihood. This would lead to a reduction of migration and many rural families will stop heading for the cities due to drought or in the slack season. The dampener, however are the experiences from earlier schemes, and its continued domination in the mind and approach to implementation adopted by bureaucratic and policy makers mind. For instance, the National Food For Work (NFFW) was patterned to serve as a pilot for the NREGA and yet, not one district followed its guidelines. There is not even a single instance of learning or improvement in the delivery systems or innovation in “works”. It was implemented as another employment scheme, a fate in all probability or repeating itself in the NERGA, and that must not be allowed.

The NREGA, as a measure to address immediate distress and supplement incomes has the potential to tackle key issues facing the impoverished people. Foremost among them is to eliminate hunger and reduce the vulnerability of the poor. This would help the poor to negotiate exploitation, be it in wages or in distress sale of their agricultural produce. The Act provides assured investments and autonomy to the community to decide on the “works”. It is unique as it allows a longer time framework of resource development centered on an incremental and organic approach to developing agriculture, natural resources base and the rural infrastructure. Being a “right”, it helps to tackle, to some extent, the bureaucratic intransigence observed in their dealing with the poor.

The outcomes must be specific and be able to effectively address adequate and timely household earnings, food and nutrition security, development of entrepreneur centric assets and improvement in the quality of rural life. This calls for “ disruptive “ approaches aimed to drastically change the manner in which hitherto employment schemes were implemented, along with constructive multi-stakeholder participation to make the difference and further the outcomes. In furthering this task, new instruments, methodologies, criteria, institutions, players and learning is basic to effective implementation, governance, accountability, transparency and performance.

References

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