Bhim, Rajasthan: “Is it NREGA work going on?” Kaluram began his address in a meeting with workers at a NREGA work site in the Dungarkhera gram Panchayat of Rajsamand district, Rajasthan.
One wondered why Kaluram, who is a former sarpanch and an activist of about 21 years with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), was asking such an obvious question.
“NREGA chaal ri hai (Yes, NREGA is going on),” nodded around 40 workers, settling down to ardently listen to what the MKSS’s 9-member team had to say. The MKSS's yatra aimed at mobilising people towards a demand for an 'accountability law' has so far travelled across 12 gram panchayats to mobilise people in the demand for an accountability law to be passed in the state.
“Or is it Akaal Rahat (famine relief works)?” asked Kaluram further, tacitly bringing out the point. Murmurs broke and workers looked visibly puzzled.
Eight years since The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), now MGNREGA, was enacted in the state of Rajasthan, the lack of knowledge about the Act and its provisions reflects a reality that is much more than the workers’ mere ignorance.
Before NREGA came into force, the Rajasthan Government used to initiate relief works under a famine code to provide a means of income for farmers hit hard by drought.
But, under these works, only twenty percent of the population of the villages lying within the radius of five miles from the centre got work. And, only the names of relatives and those close to the sarpanchs, ward panchs etc featured in the muster rolls (attendance sheets issued for work).
When NREGA was enacted in 2005 after tireless struggles by the poor, it was to break this control that the wealthy and those belonging to the dominant caste in a village held on employment generated from relief works.
Famine relief works used to also be started as per the government’s discretion, as and when it felt the need to. NREGA, on the other hand, is application-based and provides for work to start within 15 days whenever workers apply for it.
But, ground realities, portray a completely different picture. The government continues to initiate work when it wants to by controlling and manipulating all processes of work sanctions and workers’ applications.
The nexus that runs right through bureaucrats, district and block level officials, sarpanchs and mates (work site supervisors) has destroyed the powerful, legal entitlements of the Act. So when prime minister Narendra Modi said, a year ago, how NREGA was a living example of a failed scheme, his government seemed to have also meticulously worked to fail it.
Take two gram panchayats in south central Rajasthan – Nareli in Bhilwara district and Dungaji Ka Gaon in Rajsamand district.
Even nine months after the financial year began, workers of both these panchayats have got only around 30 days of the entitled 100 days’ work.
“Works under NREGA were sanctioned late this year,” said Madan Singh, a mate from Nareli. A worker from Nimbya village from the same gram panchayat said how last year too they had completed only 50 days of work.
“Because of administrative delays in sanctioning work by the gram sabha and at the district level, we were told to start filling applications of workers late this year,” said another mate from Dungaji Ka Gaon.
Many villagers openly admit how mates are all sarpanchs’ close aides. And, how shortfall in the level of education makes most poor highly dependent on mates who fill work applications on the workers’ behalf.
No receipts are given to the applicants and those whose names are left out of the muster rolls are left with no proof of a filed application to take the matter further. Section 7 of NREGA that provides for payment of unemployment allowance if work is not provided withing 15 days to an applicant, therefore, stands nullified.
Workers often keep their job cards with their mate who does not enter proper work details in them. This keeps workers at the mercy of mates and sarpanchs to get work - a right guaranteed by law.
Moreover, bondages of caste faced by villagers, restrictions that follow one’s gender and limitations that follow illiteracy mean that the Act’s strongest provisions never reach them.
Therefore, to most workers (at least in areas where NREGA is poorly implemented), there is no tangible difference between the arbitrary nature of famine relief works and guaranteed entitlements of NREGA.
The fresh fund crisis in providing NREGA work looming in the rural development ministry as communicated by it recently is a clear, grim indicator of desperate, inhuman times ahead for the rural poor in many states of the country.
