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Asset creation in private lands using NREGA: Problems & opportunities

Vivek — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:33:28 +0000

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme aimed at creating public assets that would be useful for the society at large. When NREGA was created, it relaxed this principle by allowing projects in private lands of selected marginalised communities including SCs and STs. The Minister for Rural Development is now trying to extend this by permitting works in private lands owned by small and marginal farmers who are not SCs and STs.

This proposal has been welcomed by some like Mihir Shah and has been sharply criticised by Aruna Roy and Jean Drèze among others. I believe that the proposal has merits and problems, and can be taken up cautiously with some institutional safe guards.

Asset creation

NREGA can used to create assets like small ponds or wells in private lands and this can assist in improving the productivity of these lands. If these are created in lands of people who need these facilities but cannot afford it, NREGA can serve an important social purpose. In fact, I would go further and say that NREGA will serve a useful purpose even if it is used in private lands of relatively well-to-do farmers. If this is done, it is implicitly like giving a subsidy for creating useful assets and this may not be a bad thing especially at a time when farming is not considered a lucrative option. This may also help in winning the support of farmers who are now upset with NREGA since it puts pressure on them to increase wages of labourers.

The promise of asset creation is matched by challenges of widespread corruption and shifting the focus of NREGA from traditionally marginalised social groups.

Accountability is difficult

Taking up public works in a private land raises a lot of thorny issues of accountability. First of all, block offices are typically stretched to the hilt and will not be able to actively supervise the construction of very small projects. This will create a lot of scope for misusing NREGA.

Secondly, there are standards of record keeping for public assets that does not hold in private lands. For example, it is quite easy to claim that a new well will be constructed using NREGA when a well exists already. There are many such avenues for making easy money in private property. Arguably such misuses do happen in public property as well, but there are at least some standards and documentation and there is at least a chance of making officials accountable. In case of private lands, easy corruption is all too possible.

Thirdly, in Andhra Pradesh (and perhaps elsewhere) payments to labourers were being made through the farmers when work took place in private lands. A few that I met mentioned that they were given a lump sum for the project and they paid labourers according to market wages that was lower than the NREGA wage. This goes against the very spirit of NREGA and extends the exploitation of labourers by paying the less than minimum wages.

Shifting focus from primary constituency

It is fairly common across India for public works to benefit mainly the dominant communities. By restricting the scope of asset creation in NREGA to marginalised communities there was some scope to ensure that they will get at least something out of this programme. In a powerful article Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey argued that removing this restriction will make it socially impossible for these communities by shifting the control of the programme into the hands of dominant communities and the elite. So far NREGA has been clear in terms of its target communities and has had some impact in reaching the worst-off in the society.

So far, in my view, the dominant communities have left NREGA alone – and have at most considered this programme a thorn in their flesh. By getting them into the ambit of NREGA, it is quite possible that the social control of the programme will shift into their hands. The vision they will have for NREGA will be different from those of the marginalised sections, and in many ways contrary to them. If this happens, NREGA can be affected and the potential it holds for labourers will be seriously compromised. This problem can be particularly severe in states where landless labourers have limited influence in the society and politics.

Alternatives

There are the problems of accountability and shifting of social control on one hand, and the promise of using NREGA to create highly useful social assets on the other. I believe that some of these problems can be addressed by thinking creatively.

As far as accountability goes, I believe that it is practically impossible in our society to punish farmers if they misuse NREGA funds by either not creating an asset as per the project or if they underpay the labourers. In order to reduce such misuses, all payments must be done through official channels as would be done in any public NREGA work and farmers should be kept entirely out of the payment mechanism. This may help in addressing some forms of underpayment. Additionally, some legal provisions must be created for accountability of those who use NREGA in their private lands, including mandatory documentation procedures. This can be a double-edged sword especially in the lands of marginalised communities, but some measure would be useful to avoid gross misuse.

Thirdly, instead of having open-ended option of using NREGA in private lands that would create permanent scope for misuse, we can have short periods when works in private lands can be taken up in a campaign mode. For example, the month of May or June can be designated for this purpose. When it is done in a short window, it would be possible to create additional monitoring and other mechanisms to reduce corruption. It also reduces the scope for creating a culture of corruption where private parties can routinely work with officials in making easy money through NREGA. I feel that having such periodic campaigns will also help in preventing a sustained social control of NREGA by dominant communities.

These are preliminary thoughts on a complex question. Hopefully if changes are made to NREGA it will be done responsibly without compromising the little hope that NREGA has had for a large number of men and women in India.

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What is NREGA-2?

Vivek — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:21:40 +0000

This article synthesizes some of the ideas that are floating around on changes to the structure of NREGA

In the last month there has been some discussion about the idea of NREGA-2 in the media. As far as I understand, there is no specific policy document that outlines NREGA-2. In the absence of an official policy note, an assortment of ideas are floating around on institutional changes over the original design of NREGA and I have presented them below:

Allowing NREGA work to be done in private lands of small and marginal farmers
Allowing private contractors to implement NREGA work
Increasing the use of machinery in NREGA projects
Permitting a new set of works that could be done under NREGA including, construction of buildings and sports stadiums
Appointment of ombudsman in each district for grievance redressal
Going beyond unskilled manual work by including "measurable" semi-skilled services like fishery and carpentry
Convergence with projects of other ministries
Appointing dedicated staff at the district level to educate people of their rights

Other ideas

Apart from these, Mihir Shah - a member of the planning commission - has written an article in The Hindu suggesting a series of reforms. These include: strengthening the Panchayati Raj system, focusing on increasing the productivity of agriculture and other livelihood systems, permitting the use of NREGA in private lands of small and marginal farmers, strengthening social audits, creative use of information technology, reforming the Schedule of Rates and creating greater space for civil society participation in NREGA. An article by Narayan Lakshman in The Hindu refers to a suggestion by Professor MS Swaminathan to include more technical inputs, perhaps by creating a consortium of experts.

Lack of transparency

These debates have been initiated in the context of the appointment of a new Minister for Rural Development, Mr C P Joshi. The renewed public debate on improving NREGA is to be totally welcomed. What is regrettable is that this debate is happening with little or no concrete information from the government on its plans. In fact, some of the suggestions have already materialised into legal changes with absolutely no public discussion despite the fact that NREGA continues to be one of the closely monitored programmes in the country. This approach by the new government and its new minister can have serious consequences especially because some of these changes being proposed could have far-reaching consequences for the implementation of NREGA. I feel that some suggestions such as extending the use of NREGA to private lands of small and marginal farmers could have a positive impact, while other ideas such as engaging labour displacing machinery, constructing buildings and private contractors could completely destroy it. Some of these ideas were kick-started in a meeting grandly labelled as, "NREGA: A step towards Governance Reform, Transparency and Accountability", but there is no semblance of transparency and I do not see how any of these ideas are going to improve governance are accountability. I hope to track new proposals as they come to see how this vague idea of NREGA-II is going to shape up. I will periodically update this page as the debate about NREGA-II widens, and as we learn more about the plans of the government.

Articles on NREGA-2

The following are some articles on the topic that I have bookmarked, and these will be updated periodically. [inline] [/inline]

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Asset creation in private lands using NREGA: Problems & opportunities National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme...
Will trained workers in Panchayats improve the quality of NREGA? Mihir Shah argued in a recent article that trained workers...
Who cares about quality in NREGA? NREGA has been relatively successful in many states in creating...
America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA...

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Who cares about quality in NREGA?

Vivek — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:45:16 +0000

We cannot realize the potential of NREGA unless there is an active demand to make it create socially useful assets. Is there such a voice in India today?

In the last few months they have been many discussions arguing that the quality of works in NREGA is poor, and the charge has been led by the Minister for Rural Development himself. Without doubt, NREGA is capable of creating better and more durable assets that would be of tremendous value to our society, and without doubt this potential has been underutilised. But then, who exactly wants NREGA to be productive? NREGA has two important goals: to provide employment at minimum wages and to build socially useful assets. There is an active pressure from labourers and their allies in civil society to get their share of employment and full wages (of course, this is not always successful, but at least there is a force pushing towards this goal). But there is no such pressure to materialize the goal of building durable social assets. It is assumed in NREGA that when Gram Sabhas select projects, they will choose those projects that are most socially useful. There is logic in this, but unfortunately merely identifying useful projects does not take us far enough. Planning sound projects and getting them done involves a variety of challenges. For example, some watershed projects might require certain inputs like black cotton soil that may not be provided for administratively within NREGA. It does not take much to include this and provide of all essential materials within the scope of the project, but it does need some agency that identifies such needs and demands them. Unfortunately, I feel that there is very little social will in our country either among the public, administration or social movements to generate this much needed will. Since NREGA can be useful in taking up watershed projects, I used to imagine that at least farmers will demand that NREGA is used to build sound assets for water management. The farmers I met during my fieldwork in Tamil Nadu were so against NREGA for its impact on labour costs (and perhaps cynical that government projects could build useful social assets) that they were not actively demanding any specific project. Many of them also told me that they do not care about maintenance of water bodies since they have bore wells that they can rely upon. This approach may work in the short run, but with rapidly depleting groundwater resources, it is bound to affect as not long from today. If it is used to its potential, NREGA can contribute immensely to water management, afforestation, soil management and other pressing issues of our times. But these are unlikely to happen automatically unless there is an active pressure from some source to ensure this. There are of course some active voices here and there (e.g. Samaj Pragati Sahayog of Madhya Pradesh) but these voices are isolated and rare in the debates on NREGA. I fervently hope that at least in the context of drought we are facing today, we will generate a will in our society to use NREGA to its potential.

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Thinking of NREGA from the beautiful Adirondacks

Vivek — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:26:45 +0000

The highlight of my summer has been to camping trips to the incredibly beautiful Adirondacks Mountains. It is a long chain of thickly forested mountains occupying 6 million acres, which is one third of the state of New York. Hundreds of thousands of acres of this forest was destroyed by fires in early 1900s and were rebuilt using and "NREGA-like" program called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This breathtaking view I had from a fire tower in the Adirondacks reminded me of how much we could do with such employment programs.

CCC has made an incredible contribution in the US by planting millions of acres of trees, planting nearly 3,000,000,000 trees and taking up other issues of forest management including building fire towers, pest control and other issues. The impact of Rosevelt's Tree Army can be seen even today. In India, the Minister for Environment and Forestry, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, has made welcome remarks that his government will take up afforestation in a big way. Jairam Ramesh is one of the pioneers who helped NREGA become reality; I hope his vision for afforestation will prominently include a role for NREGA and through this demonstrate the potential that wage employment programs can have for India.

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Who cares about quality in NREGA? NREGA has been relatively successful in many states in creating...
America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA...
Will trained workers in Panchayats improve the quality of NREGA? Mihir Shah argued in a recent article that trained workers...
Asset creation in private lands using NREGA: Problems & opportunities National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme...

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NREGA for the disabled

Vivek — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:49:32 +0000

Something in me changed as I saw the young man hold the microphone with his artificial arms and talked of the work he did in NREGA. He took care of the paperwork that every field assistant dreads. A visually challenged person in the same meeting told me about how he joined others in desilting his village lake. There are millions of disabled persons in India who do not find opportunities to work and contribute to the society; NREGA can change that and provide them with opportunity to work, contribute to the society, earn an income and live with dignity.

Unprecedented opportunity

NREGA is an unprecedented opportunity since it is implemented in all villages across India and thus has an unprecedented reach. It provides only 100 days of work at Rs. 100 a day, but this can go a long way in improving economic situation, self-respect, and recognition in the community as a productive member. More than anything else, it can be designed to showcase the abilities of "disabled people" and change the image of disability forever in our society. But as things stand, NREGA is not designed to do any of these today, but with some creative thinking on our part we can change this situation substantially.

Making it accessible

NREGA today mainly provides unskilled manual work. Traditionally works have been designed such that they are most suitable for young, able bodied couples working together in a project. Ashagram tried some interesting experiments in Madhya Pradesh to make these works accessible, mainly by identifying parts of the work that disabled people can do. They pointed out that distributing water, mixing cement, and an assortment of other tasks can be performed easily by people with disabilities. Ashagram's list will go a long way in making NREGA accessible, but I feel that it is inadequate for many reasons.

Exclusive & inclusive work

NREGA is designed to provide employment when people do not have alternate work. Availability of alternate work is radically different for disabled people, and relying merely on inclusive works cannot help create stable and predictable employment for them. We have to create a class of works that could be done mainly by disabled people when they wish to find work. In creating some projects exclusively for the disabled we can also allow for some skilled work, some of which can be done from their homes. Many disabled people in Tamil Nadu are trained in weaving chairs. Their talents could be used to provide basic furniture to schools, child care centres and government offices. St. Joseph's hospital in Trichy trains blind people to cultivate vegetables; it should be possible to create a kitchen garden for all schools and anganwadis using such talent. Educated people could be used to maintain paperwork in NREGA and other Panchayat work that often takes a huge amount of time. Other possibilities abound.

Tweaking the design

Apart from designing accessible works, NREGA needs some tweaking to make it work for disabled persons. Today's schedule of rates assesses how much work an average able person can do in a day. A new SoR should be developed that reflects diversity in human abilities. Secondly, it is not practical to expect our overworked engineers and block officials to create appropriate designs, do separate measurements of work, and to transition into an accessible system. It would be useful to appoint 2-3 trained social workers in each block who will be mainly in charge of this task. Andhra Pradesh has expanded the guarantee of work to 150 days for families with disabled persons. Instead, it would be meaningful to provide unlimited individual guarantee of work at least to disabled persons. Finally, it would be meaningful to include some skilled work. These changes are well within our reach, and all it requires is some thought and a lot of care on our part. The fundamental idea of NREGA is to use unused human resources to create assets that we cannot live without; some tweaking of NREGA can help us as a country to tap into the talents and energy of at least 5% of the population towards this end. I guess this is one thing no one can complain about!

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Who cares about quality in NREGA? NREGA has been relatively successful in many states in creating...
Asset creation in private lands using NREGA: Problems & opportunities National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme...
Will trained workers in Panchayats improve the quality of NREGA? Mihir Shah argued in a recent article that trained workers...
America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA...

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Will trained workers in Panchayats improve the quality of NREGA?

Vivek — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:59:02 +0000

Mihir Shah suggests training at least one worker per Panchayat so that NREGA can be more productive

There is always a dilemma in wage employment programmes on whether they should focus on creating employment or creating assets. So far most attention in NREGA has been on creating employment and the programme is rightly criticised for not producing useful and lasting assets. Among those I know, Mihir has focussed on quality issues more than anyone else, and he has excellent hands-on experience in creating watershed projects using labour intensive programmes. Mihir has argued that creating lasting assets needs detailed planning, where we have to take into account topography, rainfall patterns, social issues and other information. A remarkable handbook produced by his team outlines this process for watershed projects. They point out that while this project takes time and thought, required skills can be taught to anyone using simple techniques. Following this broad approach he wrote in a recent article in The Hindu:

…strengthening the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) by providing them requisite technical and social human resource so that plans can be made and implemented genuinely bottom-up. Without a cadre of social mobilisers or lok sewaks (at least one in every village), it is difficult to convert NREGA into a truly demand-driven programme, where works are undertaken in response to the needs and aspirations of a fully aware citizenry.

I agree with his emphasis for creating a pool of workers who are trained in order to make NREGA productive and I think there should be at least one worker in each Panchayat who focuses mainly on implementing NREGA. But, as far as sound planning goes, I doubt if appointing trained people in Panchayats will be of help, for the following reasons: (1) Panchayats are typically starved of workers and even if a person is appointed exclusively for NREGA, I fear that her efforts will go into other Panchayat work. (Perhaps this is based on my experience in Tamil Nadu where Panchayat presidents do not like NREGA for complex set of reasons). (2) There is little commitment today for productivity of NREGA. This is true of government, activists, and sadly even farmers who can benefit from NREGA works. If we create capacity for planning sound works, I think we should vest with an agency that is committed to quality. This can be done by creating nodal agencies that work exclusively in creating a shelf of works for each Panchayat. This could be done in a campaign mode in the model of Total Literacy Movement and hopefully such a campaign will make it a public issue and will help in creating a commitment for productivity in the society at large. (3) It would be easier to organise some resources like rainfall data, topographic materials, etc. at a nodal centre than to do it in each Panchayat. Further, it would be useful to have a set of people in each region who take a macro view of the situation. I prefer a model of setting up a nodal team that is well equipped with personnel and information, who will work with Panchayats in coming up with plans that can be automatically approved by the administration. This process will take time and will still require a lot of resources – but it will be resources well spent that we will appreciate for a long time to come.

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America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA...
Asset creation in private lands using NREGA: Problems & opportunities National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme...
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Will the Unique ID project improve accountability?

Vivek — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:23:39 +0000

Improving accountability depends on political and social initiatives, and not technological solutions. But technology can shape society and politics in limited ways.

A bold new step has been taken by the government of India to provide all citizens with a Unique Identity Card using smartcards that is expected to be used by citizens while paying taxes, securing government benefits, etc. In an imaginative move the government has appointed the experienced Nandan Nilekani to head the project. Many claim that this will improve the implementing of large schemes while sceptics argue that accountability does not have technological solutions. I explore some aspects of the theme here.

The issue

A planning commission report on this topic (Planning commission 2007) mentions that smart cards with unique ids can improve efficiency, reduce identification errors in selecting beneficiaries, bring greater flexibility in implementing programmes and reduce duplication in information gathering about individuals for each scheme. The report is careful to point out that these many of these problems cannot be “solved”, but can be mitigated by the use of smart cards. The report also points out that the efficiency of smart cards will depend on the quality of data that goes into it. Let’s take the example of fake ration cards. The report correctly states that there are many fake ration cards that are used for corruption, and this represents a loss for the government. To make things clear, let me distinguish fake ration cards from fake currency. Once fake currency is printed, it can be used freely used anywhere. Faking ration cards on the other hand goes beyond successful printing. Every transaction in a ration card has to be recorded in a corresponding register at a specific ration shop. Typically, the dealer also tends to know the cardholders especially in the rural areas. Thus, without the cooperation of the dealer and the accompanying system of inspectors and others, the project will not succeed. Typically ‘fake cards’ are cards issued in the names of non-existing people, or cards that are issued in the names of some people who never get to see them. Especially when there is a lot of money involved there will be an attempt to replicate such faking with smart cards as well. After all, if those who are in charge of confirming people’s identity cooperate while issuing smart cards, it would be possible for locally influential people to hoard a large number of such smart cards. Further smart cards does not help with other forms of cheating e.g. under measurement of goods, telling people that government did not supply the full quota of kerosene while making fake entries while swiping cards, shifting better quality grains for worse during transit, adulteration etc. will continue as usual. In many states people who are really poor are often not identified as Below Poverty Line (BPL) and thus are denied their entitlements; this will not change with smarter cards either. Given this background, it is not surprising that activists who encounter the system on a day-to-day basis have limited enthusiasm for e-governance. As one person put it, ‘there are only political solutions to accountability, and no technological solutions’. I agree with that view, but I also feel that if e-governance is designed the right way, it could alter some aspects of politics and help us improve accountability.

Politics, technology & accountability

At the heart of accountability lies the process of specifying a set of responsibilities, clearly recording activities of various agents, cross verifying this information and holding agents accountable if there are breaches in performance. For example, every ration dealer is expected to record each transaction in a register she maintains and in the ration card of the holders. Monitoring agencies can check the register and see if such families actually exist in the village and if they got the entitlements they received on paper. Without proper records, ability to cross verify or follow up on problems when found, accountability cannot be secured in a corrupt environment. Technology can assist in each of these processes. First of all, use of smart cards can help us record every transaction including the time, place, quantity and price accurately. In this process the use of smart cards will reduce problems like fake signatures and entitlements of people who have the card in their possession cannot be transferred without accessing their card. The impact can be significant. The greatest promise of technology comes at the level of cross verification. To begin with, it is extremely time consuming to process paper data to even start the verification process. For example in an employment scheme like NREGA cross verification involves meeting a beneficiary and finding out how many days they worked in a particular project and how much money they received. Suppose we are hoping to verify a project in which all 100 people of a village worked in a project that lasted 25 days in all. Not everyone works every day, and suppose 75 people turned up on an average day. In order to find out how long a person worked, we have to manually go through over 1,000 rows of records manually for each person. With digital entries at source, this cumbersome task can become extremely easy. Another equally important feature is that technology can remove the control of information from the hands of those who indulge in corruption. To access paper records we have to approach precisely those who fudged them, and naturally they would resist making it difficult to monitor their activities. One official jokingly told me that he would rather part with his life than part with his papers. By taking information out of their control, it would be difficult for them to resist providing information or doing damage control with records when they sense trouble. Technology can thus reduce the costs of cross-verification dramatically and thus alter the terrain of politics for accountability. But for this to happen, information should be easily, quickly and cheaply accessible for those who wish to take up this exercise. There is an impressive movement in India today to combat corruption using right to information. Ready availability of information can give a fillip to these movements. If a social audit team can just go online and get a ready list of how many days each family in a village got work in an NREGA project or how much rice a family received each month for the last six months, it would be far easier for them to carry out the verification exercise. I have argued technology affects accountability indirectly by reducing the cost of getting information. If this has to have a significant impact, suitable systems have to be developed. Today, anyone can go online and find out who worked for how many days in NREGA in any village. Such facilities should be available on all entitlements in the fullest spirit of right to information. In the last 10 years, the penetration of mobile phones and public call offices have increased so much that access to telephones has increased dramatically even in far-flung areas. Instead of stopping with providing information online, we could think about individuals calling on telephone to find out details like how much money has been provided to them in different schemes over telephone. This could be achieved by having highly empowered call centres or even by automated technologies over a period of time. Similarly, people should also be able to call and receive information by post without delay from call centres or by even sending a letter requesting information. Today, when information is requested, it takes a lot of time for the officials to gather the requisite information from paper records, to compile them and to send it to people. What information technology can do is to make information readily, quickly and conveniently available to people. Such measures will make the right to information more meaningful and less costly, and will thus increase public vigilance dramatically. Public vigilance, rather than internal monitoring systems, will force the government to take action when irregularities are found. Ultimately all the available information cannot make a dent if people are not vigilant and active. Today there is an active right to information movement in India. The time I spent in rural Tamil Nadu and other states also gives me a feeling that there are enough people who will act, if they have the right tools at their command. Technology can energize the sense of public vigilance by providing low cost access to information and in doing that permanently alter the terrain of politics of accountability.

This post is a part of the series on technology and governance in India.

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Jharkhand police: Enquiry or cover-up in Lalit Mehta’s murder case?

Vivek — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:34:32 +0000

A report by the Dy. Commissioner, and SP Palamu indicates that police in Palamu is not serious about pursuing Lalit Metha's murderers

One of our colleagues, Lalit Mehta, was brutally murdered in Palamu, Jharkahand recently. A sloppy report has prepared by the Deputy Commissioner and the SP, Palamu indicates that the Jharkhand police is either insincere in pursuing the murderers or actively protecting them. Lalit was in the process of organising a survey on NREGA along with Jean Dreze and a band of volunteers. Instead of pursuing the murders, the report casts aspersions on the survey team and even goes on to suggest that Jean could have been involved in the murder. It also claims that the survey team manufactured evidence of fraud in NREGA works. I have been a part of such surveys before with similar teams and I have only one word to describe the insinuations in the report - Ridiculous! Corruption after all can thrive where it gets active support of the police. I only understand this shabby report by the police (see details below) as a attempt to protect the corrupt murderers in nexus with them. There is now no room to have any confidence in the police in this matter. I demand a CBI probe into the murder so that some confidence can return to to those who want to see the culprits punished. Copied below is a statement on that is being circulated for a signature campaign on this issue.

We are shocked by the recent report prepared by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) and Superintendent of Police (SP) of Palamau, commenting on Lalit Mehta’s murder as well as on the survey of NREGA conducted there in May 2008 by the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. This report is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the real issues, which effectively protects those responsible for corruption and violence in the area. The report shows that the police have made no serious enquiries into Lalit Mehta’s murder. It does not provide any credible clue to this murder, but raises a number of mischievous conjectures using selective evidence. For instance, the report refers to interviews with Lalit Mehta’s brother and his sons, without mentioning that the sons are one and three years old, respectively. Meanwhile, evidence from extensive interviews with Lalit’s wife, Ashrita, is ignored. Further, the report is full of factual mistakes. Even the date of the murder is incorrect: Lalit Mehta was murdered on 14 May, not on 15 May as stated in the report. Instead of presenting a serious analysis of the circumstances of the murder, the report makes absurd insinuations, such as Jean Drèze’s possible involvement in the murder, or the allegation that he and his team manufactured evidence of fraud in NREGA works. Equally ridiculous is the unsubstantiated claim of the possible role of an old family dispute about Lalit Mehta’s inter-religious marriage being the cause for the murder. The report also makes insidious allegations about the survey team, Vikas Sahyog Kendra, and Lalit Mehta’s family. For instance, the report presents a ludicrous picture of the social audit activities conducted by the survey team, and even accuses the team of using devious means to collect testimonies. No-one familiar with the team’s work (which was conducted in a transparent manner in full view of the public and the media) can take this seriously. Casting unwarranted aspersions on people like Jean Drèze, who is a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (and therefore mandated to monitor and investigate NREGA implementation anywhere in the country), and on students from Delhi University and other reputed universities, is in fact an attempt to snuff out any independent monitoring of government expenditure. The report reinforces earlier suspicions that there is an entrenched and deep rooted nexus of corruption and violence surrounding NREGA in Palamau, with powerful connections. Otherwise, why would the district’s seniormost officers go to such length to undermine a forthright examination of the use of NREGA funds in this area? We demand that the report of the DC and SP Palamau be rejected by the Central Government as well as by the State Government, and that a CBI enquiry into Lalit Mehta’s murder and the corruption in NREGA works in Palamau District be initiated immediately.

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Murder of Lalit Kumar, NREGA activist in Palamu, Jharkhand

Vivek — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:56:05 +0000

In one of the worst cases of attack on an NREGA activist, Lalit Kumar was murdered this week in Palamu

Right from the word go combating corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a major agenda of activists of the Right to Food Campaign. Needless to say, it brings activists into conflict with the vested interests that are deeply rooted in India today. This week in Palamu, a young and committed activist - Lalit Kumar - was murdered, perhaps a result of his actions to secure the poorest of people their rights. I am reproducing an appeal below from the website of the right to food campaign on this issue:

We are deeply disturbed by the recent murder of Lalit Kumar Mehta, member of Vikas Sahyog Kendra (Palamau District), who was brutally killed on 14 May 2008 as he was returning from Daltonganj to Chhattarpur on a motorcycle. The circumstances of this murder are disturbing. Lalit (aged 36), an active member of the right to food campaign and Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, has been working in this area for more than 15 years on issues related to the right to food and the right to work. He was a very gentle person and his work was widely appreciated. However he was also fearless in exposing corruption and exploitation, and often came in the way of vested interests. At the time of this incident, Lalit was helping a team of volunteers from Delhi and elsewhere to conduct a social audit of NREGA works in Chainpur and Chhattarpur Blocks of Palamau District. Attempts had already been made to dissuade the team from conducting this investigation, particularly in Chainpur Block. Is it a coincidence that Lalit was murdered just one day after the investigation began? If this murder was an act of intimidation, it did not succeed. Friends and supporters from all over Jharkhand gathered at Vikas Sahyog Kendra on 17 May. They unanimously resolved to continue the campaign against corruption and exploitation in this area. A public hearing of NREGA will be held in Chhattarpur on 26 May. We appeal to all those who stand in solidarity with Lalit and his work to participate in this event. Our immediate demands: (1) CBI enquiry into this incident; (2) strict action on all the complaints and irregularities emerging from this social audit of NREGA. Balram (Right to Food Campaign), Jean Drèze (Allahabad University), Jawahar (Vikas Sahyog Kendra), Meghnath (Akhra, Ranchi), Vinoy Ohdar (ActionAid) and others including all members of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan. Local contact: 06566-290013 (Vikas Sahyog Kendra) or rozgar@gmail.com

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America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act

Vivek — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:01:01 +0000

Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA and the Employment Guarantee Act in India (NREGA). One programme of new deal comes close to NREGA - Civilian Conservation Corps

The Government of India passed the all-important National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 (for an intro click here). Whenever I mention it to my friends in USA the first question they ask me is, “is this like the new-deal”. The new deal has many similarities with NREGA, but is a much wider concept. NREGA is a programme dealing exclusively with labour-intensive, unskilled work. Employment programmes under new deal were much wider in scope including large-scale employment of artists, writers, among others. There were so many agencies and programmes under new deal that Roosevelt’s administration was called the ‘alphabet-soup government’ (due to acronyms such as WPA, CCC, etc.). In this alphabet soup, one programme comes close to NREGA – that is Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). CCC aimed at creating employment under the condition of mass unemployment and in the process assist environmental regeneration. CCC and other fellow programmes are credited with creating numerous national parks in the US, soil conservation, reforestation, and other important feats that have improved the environment in this country. Let me pause for a moment to confess that I have read only a little about CCC so far, and am not acquainted with its criticism – hopefully, I will work on it soon. In any case, the ambition of NREGA is similar to CCC – to provide employment so that people do not suffer from hunger and destitution and at the same time create useful assets. Among useful assets are ‘Jal, Jungle, Jameen’ i.e. water, afforestation and soil conservation.

Employment or assets?

One of the many criticisms of the Employment Guarantee Act is that projects often do not create useful assets. Critics argue that if transfer of money to poor people is the aim, then it is better done directly rather than making people do hard work that yields nothing. Even if NREGA yields no assets, it serves a useful ‘selection’ function i.e. since only poor people tend to take up hard physical work for minimum wage, NREGA ensures that money goes to people who need it the most. That said, the argument that NREGA is not creating assets is a serious one and should get the attention it deserves. I have not come across detailed studies about asset creation by NREGA. What we know of it so far is from the record of Employment Guarantee Scheme in Maharashtra and of the various food-for-work programmes across India. There is some evidence in Maharashtra that it had a good impact on some sectors – particularly horticulture. But on the whole I think there is some merit to the notion that wage-employment programmes did not produce useful assets. Given the potential do good work, this is a pity. Somehow there seems to be a division between creating employment and assets – at least administratively. Interestingly, the debate on whether wage-employment programmes should concentrate on creating employment or assets is neither new nor restricted to India. When the debate was raging in 1930s FDR (then president of USA) Harry Hopkins and one Harold on a particular day. When Harry Hopkins argued that employment should get the priority and FDR answered, ‘you are perfectly right’. Later in the day Harold argued that assets should get the emphasis and FDR answered, ‘you are perfectly right’. His wife had watched the two and she confronted him that he had said both opposing views were correct. FDR looked at Eleanor for a moment and said, ‘you know dear, you are perfectly right’ [Recounted by J K Galbraith in a talk at Harvard May 9, 2002]. While one would think that there is a great deal of synchrony between employment and asset creation – administratively speaking they are two different equally worthy goals. Unfortunately though, within the scope of wage employment programmes such as NREGA, employment is the gaze with which the government looks and so asset creation does not get the emphasis it deserves. If the claims that I read about CCC were true, it has had remarkable achievements in a short span. Due to environmental mismanagement in the last century there were many environmental disasters in the mid-west including periodic floods, massive erosion of topsoil, etc. CCC worked in restoring things in important ways. Many parks were created that people continue to enjoy till today.

Employment for Environment

There is no question that India needs to invest in its environment, water, land and other resources. With our vast human resources, these are well within our reach. The question though is whether we will start putting our attention to these issues. NREGA offers the perfect opportunity for us to give environment the attention it deserves. With some push, we can make a lot happen. Let the slogan be Employment for Environment.

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