TOWARDS IMPLEMENTING THE
RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT

Brinda Karat

THE ministry for rural development has initiated a welcome exercise of consultations to frame the rules and guidelines for the implementation of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act that was unanimously adopted by parliament. The ministry has prepared a draft of the proposed guidelines. Just as it is was essential for organisations working with the rural poor to intervene to prevent the dilution of the Act itself, so also for its implementation it is necessary to intervene at the time of the framing of the rules so as to prevent any backtracking. The framing of rules provides an opportunity to strengthen the entitlements won by the rural poor through the Act. It is also essential that on crucial issues like the type of work projects that are “permitted”, the rules must allow flexibility in tune with local needs.

The Act itself is only one step towards the goal of the right to work for all citizens of the country. Even though it is limited in its reach and its scope, it is a welcome legislation that if implemented properly will allow a family who registers for work under the Act to earn a floor level of six thousand rupees a year, which will undoubtedly provide some relief in this period of acute distress.

However, the implementation of the Act will require the largest mass mobilisations and assertions of the rural poor. This is a challenge before the Party and mass organisations working among these sections.

LEFT INTERVENTION IN THE REGA

It will be recalled that there were five main areas where the intervention of the CPI(M), other Left parties and movements and organisations of the rural poor made a substantial difference to the scope of the Act. The suggestions made by the West Bengal Left Front government to improve the draft were also important. Earlier the Standing Committee of the Rural Development Ministry had made some very important recommendations to improve the bill, though only some were accepted by the government in its final draft. There was a strong opposition from all sections that the Act should not be confined only to BPL families as was earlier proposed by the government. The government had to remove this conditionality and the Act is now applicable to any family in rural India.

The areas of intervention by the Left parties in the last round of discussions with the government were:

1. The removal of the switch-off clause included in the final draft from the government’s side which would have permitted the government to stop the programme at will. Instead, the Left intervention ensured that the Act would be mandatorily implemented throughout rural areas in the country in a phased manner within five years beginning with 200 districts.

2. The scope of the different works permissible was extremely centralised and limited in the final draft and did not take into account either the needs of the different states or the seasonal variations during which the proposed list would have been irrelevant such as for example during the monsoon season. The Left intervention has given the right to state governments to intervene according to their specific state needs on the type of work permissible and also expanded the list though not to the extent or the flexibility required.

3. The issue of minimum wages was the most contentious issue during the discussions between the Left and the government. The standing committee recommendations were rather too flexible on this issue having proposed two-thirds of the national referral wage or the state minimum wage, whichever is higher. The national referral wage calculated as the average of the wages given in different states is around Rs 66 per day. Two thirds of the wage means around Rs 49 to 50. At the other end of the scale there are states like Kerala that have a minimum wage of Rs 134. Since the central government has to pay the full wage amount required under the legislation, the government was keen to keep the floor level wages as low as possible. It refused to make a commitment on how much it was going to pay demanding the freedom to take its own decision. The experience of the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme, the only equivalent scheme in the country, was an example where the government was paying only Rs 47 as the minimum wage under the Employment Guarantee Scheme although the state minimum wage is much higher, on the grounds that the state government had to bear the entire cost. Clearly, it was essential to force the central government to commit itself to a minimum floor level wage for the scheme. The Left parties effort was to get at least the national referral wage accepted, but in the event the floor level wage has been fixed at Rs 60 for the purposes of the Act.

4. A very important aspect that was raised by the Left parties is that of the rights of women. This intervention resulted in inclusion, as part of the law, of the direction to implementing agencies to give priority so as to ensure that one-third of the beneficiaries should be women. Many arguments against this provision were put forward by the government based on the lack of understanding of inequalities within households. In the discussions senior ministers even quoted the reported opposition of reputed leaders of “peoples movements ” to any inclusion of specific provisions for women as being impractical and unnecessary. There is a false perception that “relations within families are always equal” and since the entitlement is for the “family” whether the woman gets an opportunity to work or not should be left to the family to decide. The reality is that where an entitlement is not for every individual but to one person in the family, as in the present Act, women are left out. This negatively affects women’s status. In addition, numerous studies have shown that a much larger percentage of women’s earnings go directly for family survival, so not having specific provisions for women would also have a negative impact on the family.  Besides there is an earlier recommendation of the Planning Commission adopted by the government that at least one third of beneficiaries of all government schemes must be women. The Left intervention was successful and a clause was added in the Act.

5. An important aspect is that of finances. The financial resource mobilisation rights of state governments are limited and most states face an acute resource crunch. The Act expects state governments to provide for 10 per cent of the expenses for the material component. In addition, in the event of failure to provide work to any registered applicant within 15 days of the application, the state government will have to bear the full cost of the unemployment allowance, which will be not less than 25 per cent of the wage for the first 30 days (Rs 15 unemployment allowance per day) and half the wage, or Rs 30, for the remaining period if work is not given by the government. The centre must guarantee that there is no delay in the actual fund disbursement to the states so as to ensure that the plan for the work can be implemented. The national food for work programme got delayed in many states because of delay in giving the finances from the centre. At the same time since in some states the food component did not reach at all, the scheme had to be changed and the food component removed. It is essential to have a guarantee that the central funds reach on time. It was agreed by the minister that the centre will provide the funds at the beginning of every quarter to all the states and in the absence of that, the centre will bear the cost of the unemployment allowance. This aspect is not in the body of the Act but is to be added in the rules.

It is in this background that the rules of the Act are to be framed.

SUGGESTED RULES

The note circulated by the ministry for discussion on the rules includes concrete suggestions related to registration of applicants, job cards to be issued, the type of works to be executed, the payment of wages and measurement of work, involvement process of panchayats, ward sabhas and gram sabhas in the planning and execution stages, the release of funds etc.

These are not just technical issues. The rules are extremely important and can either strengthen the Act or conversely weaken and even subvert it. For example, if the registration of those wanting work is going to be bureaucratic and an exclusive process instead of an inclusive process, or if special efforts are not made to get women to register, or if details of the entitlements are not known and demand is not generated so that the schemes are restricted in scope, the entitlement itself can be eroded. At the same time the rules are bound by the main legislation. Some of the important issues that need to be raised are as follows:

APPLICABILITY OF THE ACT

At the time of discussions on the Act, the Left parties had raised the issue that once the state allocations are fixed, the state concerned should be free to decide the areas where the programme can be started in addition to those in the identified districts. This is because identification of backwardness of an area is much more accurate if it is done at the block level. There may, for example, be many “backward” blocks in those districts not identified as backward or conversely there may be some blocks in identified backward districts which are better off. While keeping to the criteria of the Planning Commission, the states should be given the scope to identify the most backward blocks to start the employment guarantee programme. It has to be explored whether this can be included as part of the rules.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND PEOPLES PARTICIPATION

The most critical issue in the successful implementation of the scheme in all its different aspects is that of accountability and people’s participation. The proposed rules do mention the role of gram sabhas, wards and the panchayats in the planning and implementation of the Act. This, of course, will be dependent to a great extent on the democratic functioning of the panchayats. The fact is that it is only where the Left has been in government that the democratic functioning of the panchayats has become institutionalised through the mandatory holding of meetings of different tiers of the panchayats, convening of the gram sabhas, allocation of adequate funds etc. This, in turn, has given the panchayats in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura a much greater range of experience in planning and execution of schemes at the village and block level, experience that is going to count in the implementation of the REGA.

The “misuse” of funds, the widespread practice of “ghost muster rolls” etc. in a large number of other states are also linked to the absence of democratic functioning of panchayat institutions.  It is therefore essential to frame the rules so that convening of gram sabhas and panchayats becomes mandatory. However, the proper coordination between the different tiers of the panchayats and the role of each tier is best left to the state governments. For example, in some states gram sabhas are of several thousand people. In some states there is little attendance and the gram sabhas, because of the lack of land reforms, are dominated by the views and requirements of rural rich and other elite sections. In other states, particularly those in the north-east, along with the panchayat system there are systems of tribal autonomous areas, councils etc. Therefore, the rule while giving a primary role to the functioning of the elected bodies must avoid being schematic about details of planning the projects as it is in the present draft.

A very important aspect that is missing from the ministry’s draft is the need to convene assemblies of those who have registered for work so that their views on priority of schemes on which they will be working can also be heard which might not be possible in the gram sabha. The assemblies of registered workers in villages as mandatory processes of consultation in deciding programmes must be ensured through the rules. In the NFFWP it was found in some states, as for example in UP and Maharashtra, that schemes for minor irrigation have often been designed to meet the irrigation needs of the more well-off landed sections who then control the water made available through a public scheme. It is necessary also to identify groups like self-help women’s groups who can be part of the consultation process.

The status of the programme officer in relation to the panchayats is ambiguous. The experience of the functioning of the NFFWP as well as the working of the District Rural Development Authority (DRDA), which is not linked to the panchayats has shown the adverse consequences of bypassing the panchayat structures for local level planning. The rules should therefore make it clear that the programme officer is accountable to the relevant rung of the panchayat system.

Another important aspect of accountability is the redressal mechanisms so that workers deprived of their rights can get justice. Both the Act and the government proposals for the rules are vague on this score and need strengthening. There should be a time-bound procedure for redressal against the acts of omission or commission applicable to all implementing agencies. There must be a penalty clause of financial compensation to the complainant if the complaint is not addressed within the specified time limit. Without this rule, officials violating the law cannot be made accountable.

The REGA has a clause to stop any scheme where there is prima facie evidence of corruption in any particular area. It is necessary to protect the rights of workers so that they do not suffer through cessation of the work for the crimes of those responsible for corruption. The current proposals of the government do not include this point.

In the context of execution of projects under the Act, the government has proposed to include NGOs among executing agencies. This is a method to retreat from its own responsibility and must be opposed. The experience of handing over the functioning of anganwadis to NGOs, for example, has been very negative as NGOs have little accountability. Contractors can find a backdoor entry through NGOs if works are farmed out to NGOs as is proposed. This should be avoided.

Many organisations have demanded that the legally backed right to information should be linked with the functioning of the scheme so that there is transparency and accessibility to all the information regarding the functioning of the Act to prevent corruption. This is an important recommendation, which needs to be included in the rules.

SIMPLIFICATION OF REGISTRATION,ELIGIBILITY FOR JOB CARDS & OTHER RELATED PROCEDURES

The entitlements under the Act are available only to those who actually register their names as applicants in the designated place for receiving such applications for work. Thus a crucial issue for the implementation of the Act is the registration of workers and also the proof of how much work they have been offered through the issuance of job cards. A pre-requisite for registration is clearly the availability of information about the Act and the rights of workers. This requires the widest dissemination of the entitlements under the Act. It was found in the National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP) that a large number of people did not know of the scheme at all. This is equally true of many government schemes. The lack of information indirectly leads to a restricted right since many people who would apply for work do not do so because they do not know of their rights. This also has an effect of restricting the scope of the scheme itself. Since the Act is demand-driven, it is essential to have mandatory provisions for dissemination of the rights of people for work under the Act and to have a proactive approach to registration. The process of registration must be extremely flexible and available through the year not limited through gram sabhas or in a particular period as proposed in the rules. 

As mentioned earlier, the Act does not provide universal rights to work but is restricted to 100 days work per family. The definition of the family is such as to include all adult members who have a joint ration card or live in a shared household. We had opposed this definition but the government was adamant on this issue. The ground reality is that such a definition of family, apart from restricting the rights of the poor, may lead to a conflict of interests between families of adult sons/daughters living under the same roof as far as legal access to the benefits of the Act is concerned. There may also be single women within the families who require work but may be excluded by inequalities prevalent within the family. Thus it is essential at the registration stage to ensure that all members of the family who want to work should be enabled to register as job seekers. It should not be restricted to registration through the “head of the family” as proposed by the government. Secondly, a large number of poor people in rural India have no proof of permanent residence having been denied ration cards or registration on the electoral roles. Substantial numbers are migrant workers. Unless measures are taken by concerned authorities to help them register, those who actually require the work may be denied it. Therefore the requirement of “permanent residence”, suggested by the government, should be made more flexible and simplified.

A related issue is that of the job card of the applicant. The experience of the issuance of ration cards is relevant in this context. In West Bengal all members of families have individual ration cards. This not only helps protect individual entitlements but also is prevention against cutting of quotas and corruption.

The rules regarding job cards must reflect the right of individual members to apply for work granted by the REGA. The Act mandates that the programme officer will have to allocate work to those registered. The additional provision is that the work allocation must be in such a way that priority is given to ensure that one third of the beneficiaries are women. The implementation of these provisions will require rotational offer of work to each member of a family registered, with a limit of 100 days for each family. Therefore each individual member of the family must be given an individual card, which could be a copy of the family job card so that work given to the individual can also be accounted for and lack of access to the family job card should not be the reason for deprivation of the rights under the Act.

(To be continued)