NREGA – Not your run-of-the-mill scheme

The headline of an article in The Hindu of May 23, 2009 reads “Wage payment delays hit NREGA work in Jharkhand”. I was shocked as the headline paralleled another one that I remembered, published about a year and a half ago by the Indian Express on its website: “It’s Official: In Poorest States, Job Funds Don’t Reach the Poor.” The short and incomplete analysis of the draft CAG report on NREGA that had just come out then and the trenchant criticism on the website article was condensed further into, “The NREGS hence is nowhere close to its goal of creation of durable infrastructure in rural areas, which would contribute to long-term employment,” with the implication that it would be better to discard. Creation of durable infrastructure is only one aspect of the program, but there was no mention of the other: how the scheme is supposed to help reduce traumatic off-season migration of laborers. It was a direct condemnation and there was no effort at making the scheme work better, which indeed was the thrust of the CAG report (one must read the conclusion to understand the purport of the report). The business class’s antipathy towards empowering the laborer class came through loud and clear.

This is the background to my interest in report in The Hindu which I guessed, given the paper’s patent leaning to the left, is not going to be a withering attack on the initiative. But the first line carried on in the vein of the heading, “[NREGA], the Union government’s flagship poverty alleviation scheme, is in danger of floundering in Jharkhand.” I gulped but proceeded to read it anyway. And, I am glad I did.

NREGA is indeed a subsidy (read this with the appropriate level of sneer because the subsidy is directed at the have-nots; had this been for the haves, the sneer would have metamorphosed into a beaming smile) scheme and on this count alone, it is run-of-the-mill. The draft CAG report, much leveraged by the corporate media to criticize this “unproductive” transfer of wealth, has much to say about the program’s inherent inefficiencies. Again, par for the course of government efforts at social engineering. As a general criticism, the following is leveled at those who devised NREGA and are working towards its success – “arm-chair economists” like the “savvy-JNU brand advisors” “never did us much good”. Ouch, that hurts! But, for the casual reader, all the above criticisms are right on the money, but only if (s)he agrees that the “us” does not involve the poor. That is a different India after all, which does not vacation overseas.

On the media slant against NREGA, I am going to let Prof Jean Drèze speak. He wrote “Numerous business columnists, most of whom have never seen an NREGA worksite (except perhaps from an airplane), have gone out of their way to rubbish this programme. “Expensive gravy train”, “money guzzler”, “costly joke” and “wonky idea” are the colourful terms they have used to describe it.” What the pin-stripe suited business class says about NREGA is paid back in full measure by “jhola-wala economists”. You must read what he wrote in toto to understand the unvarnished message he took from the report.

To my knowledge Prof Jean Drèze has not studied or worked at JNU. He did a stint with the Delhi School of Economics, that bastion of the left. As a part of the “ Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan” in Khunti district (again, in Jharkhand), teams of students from “Delhi University, Bombay University, Bangalore University and NALSAR, Hyderabad” surveyed “10 gram panchayats in Khunti and Murhu blocks.” Such pinkish cheeks!

Prof Drèze is currently with Allahabad University. How arm-chair is he? He “visited the Murhu block office” (in Jharkhand) to follow up on the complaints. Please note that the Murhu block does not have any five star hotels where Prof Drèze could have arm-chaired. Then, where is his arm-chair? Let me tell you: “A visit to Sanjay basti, a slum tucked away behind Delhi University’s North campus might help you understand Prof Drèze’s work. He lives there in a one room tenement that he calls home.” This you can read in a comment on a rant against him. It must have been when he was with Delhi University. I am sure he is now arm-chairing in another tenement somewhere in or near Allahabad.

But the most important thing to note is that activists are pursuing the developmental efforts even into Pluto’s realm, rowing across Styx most intrepidly. They are the ones who are generating scathing and heavy-weight criticisms of the ground realities. Compared to them, the business media criticisms are like the bland English fare. Activists are doing physical monitoring and forcing the powers that be, to whom it is getting unbearably hot, to respond. No one said as clearly as Prof Drèze that routing payments through banks and post-office accounts was done hurriedly, before the infrastructure could be put in place – “…the rush to bank payments has led to reduced transparency by withdrawing key documents from public scrutiny.” The activists are waist deep in an evolving situation. They definitely are not arm-chairing. You cannot say the same about the business press that publishes handouts from business houses.

NREGA is a subsidy but with a hopeful message: “to build the foundations of a social security system in rural India, revive village economies, promote social equity, and empower rural labourers.” Committed people are working towards realizing this hope. This is what makes NREGA something other than run-of-the-mill.

Raghuram Ekambaram