Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has often reiterated, to the satisfaction of the corporates, that stimulus packages will not be discontinued till US and Europe recover from the crisis. Government has not responded to the trade unions' suggestion to link the stimulus-package with sustaining and increasing employment. This results in jobless growth, which is the bane of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policy.

The UPA Government seems to be anxious to showcase growth of employment in the unorganised rural areas which, it probably believes, will not be easy for critics to discern. In this context, the Rural Development Ministry had convened a meeting of the state rural development ministers(RDMs) on September 9, 2009. The object of the meeting was to bring about convergence between the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme(under NREGA) and various welfare schemes operating for the rural poor. A consensus eluded the ministers' meeting. Already, there has been considerable criticism of the manner in which the Government was seeking to “restructure” NREGA, which a responsible NGO led by Aruna Roy, former member of National Advisory Council then led by Sonia Gandhi, had alleged was going against the interests of the SC and ST participants in NREG programme.

According to RD Ministry sources, the only proposal that earned consensus was that Government should ensure banking facilities in rural areas where there were none. The Prime Minister, who addressed the RD Ministers, sought to impress that the rural working poor should be be provided with greater purchasing power, which would increase the market demand and so on. How is this to be done? Obviously, the so-called welfare schemes are expected to “trickle down” the purchasing power.

The RD Ministry claims to be implementing at least half a dozen rural development and poverty alleviation schemes through the state governments and union territories. These schemes include NREGA and Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna(SGSY), meant for poverty alleviation and employment generation. Other schemes are: Indira Awaas Yojna(IAY), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna(PMGSY), Integrated Watershed Management Yojna(IWMP),Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme(ARWSP) and Total Sanitation Programme(TSP). The RD Ministry keeps releasing statistics of allocation, expenditure and achievements occasionally about these schemes. Only NREGA has statutory support ; others are informal schemes and therefore alleged to involve corruption and largely based on statistical play coupled with some welfare here and there. Contractors have been the biggest gainers in their case.

Implementation of NREGA remains a distinctly different proposition since it has to be implemented in accordance with law and therefore the Ministry's claims can be subjected to close scrutiny under the Right to Information(RTI) Act. The Ministry's statistics, for instance, show that during 2008-09, under NREGA, 216 crore person days employment was generated, central allocations amounted to Rs 29939.60 crore and total expenditure was Rs 27137.68 crore Sounds quite imposing.

The recent observation by Jean Dreze, Visiting Professor at Allahabad University and member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, about the NREGA implementation is captioned as “Employment Guarantee or Slave Labour”. After closer study of the situation of wage payments at various places under NREGA, he has said, “The delays in NREGA are not just operational - they reflect a deliberate attack on the scheme.

NREGA happens to be a demand-driven programme. Long delays in wage payments to impoverished participants are eventually “driving them away”. A recent investigation of hunger deaths in Bran district of Rajasthan, found that delays in NREGA wage payments were partly responsible for the tragedy, says Dreze, not a habitual critic of the NREGA. He has been actually trying to highlight the significance of its implementation for bringing a change in rural life.

He found a “grain of truth” when officials attributed delay in wage payment to the inability of banks and post offices to handle mass payments of NREGA wages. But he says, “as a diagnosis of the problem it is quite misleading.” Why? Because, the current “jam” in the banking system is the Central Government's own doing. It reflects the hasty and top-down switch to bank payments imposed a year ago,” Jean says, adding that as far back as October 2007, members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council had warned against this and advocated a gradual transition starting with villages that were close to the nearest bank.

One ominous development: “The recent rearrangement of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, with some very able members being shown the door to make room for Congress MPs and friends was in the same genre. A better way of winning credit for NREGA would be to make it work , starting with timely payment of wages, Dreze said.

Left trade unions fight for the unorganised labour. All forward-looking forces inside Parliament had fought to improve NREG law. Should not they now stand up in defence of this unique law, and not allow it to be sabotaged? (IPA Service)