Rajasthan way ahead

The well-maintained job card of a person who has worked for 100 days.-BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Rozgar Guarantee, Zordar Guarantee (employment guarantee, powerful guarantee). For Lalubhai of Obri panchayat in Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, this slogan sums up what the NREGA means to him and others in his village. Our field survey, too, puts Rajasthan in a fairly good light. Most sample workers there had spent at least 60 days on NREGA worksites in the preceding 12 months, the main transparency safeguards were in place, and the administration was working overtime to implement the Act.

The seeds of these achievements go back a long way: public employment programmes have a long history in Rajasthan. Basic systems are in place and there is a wealth of administrative experience to draw upon. A good illustration of this preparedness was the launch of the Act on February 2, 2006.

In Dungarpur district, unprecedented enthusiasm among the people marked the occasion. Loudspeakers blared out the main provisions of the Act from cassettes provided by the government. Armed with their ration cards (as an identity document), men and women queued up from early morning to apply for job cards. Arrangements to issue job cards on the spot were in place. Many already had a fair idea what the NREGA was about. In Thana panchayat, when a group of villagers was asked what was happening, they said they had been given the right to work.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the NREGA in Rajasthan is the staggering scale of works. During the survey, it was not uncommon to find entire hamlets empty until 2.30 p.m., when NREGA work ends (during summer). In many gram panchayats, muster rolls for over 2,000 workers were issued every fortnight. In our sample, 36 per cent of households had worked for a full 100 days in the preceding 12 months. The scale and predictability of NREGA employment have brought Rajasthan much closer to the goal of a work guarantee than any other State.

In a State where the social norms militate against women having independent incomes, it is heartening that the NREGA workforce consists overwhelmingly of women: 71 per cent of the workers in our Rajasthan sample were women. Only one-fifth of these women had earned any cash income other than NREGA wages in the preceding 12 months. For them, the NREGA is a new-found source of economic independence and freedom. I am the head of the household, said Haski, a married Adivasi woman from Sirohi.

Few States, if any, have taken transparency norms as seriously as Rajasthan (see Table 13). Muster rolls are usually available at the worksite and daily attendance is taken on them in front of the workers. Further, wages are paid in a public space (as per guidelines), and job cards are updated at the time of payment. These and other safeguards have considerably narrowed the scope for embezzlement, at least in the wage component of NREGA works (though there have been reports of continued cheating in the material component, such as inflated technical estimates).

Worksite management has been an important area of innovation in Rajasthan. Mates (worksite supervisors), both men and women, have been trained to maintain muster rolls, assign tasks to workers, record their output, and ensure that worksite facilities are available. This experiment is still at an early stage, but there are good prospects of it leading to better worksite supervision, higher productivity, an improved work environment, and an improvement of the transparency norms.

Challenges do remain: for instance, Rajasthan has a very poor record of payment of minimum wages on the NREGA. Nevertheless, this experience is an impressive demonstration of the possibility of implementing the Act. It also shows how skilful public mobilisation can be brought to bear on State politics. Indeed, these achievements also owe much to citizens organisations such as the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. Aside from acting as watchdogs (for example, by conducting social audits), these organisations have also been involved in work such as training of mates. They are also charting out a programme of unionising NREGA workers.

Reetika Khera and Anish Vanaik