President's Address Falls Short of Congress Promise
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The Congress manifesto had promised 100 days of a work a year, at a real wage of 100 rupees a day for everyone under NREGA.
This was understood to mean an individual, not a family entitlement, which is now the case. Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan, which champions NREGS primarily in Rajasthan, says a member of the manifesto committee, who is now a minister had clarified to it that NREGS would indeed become an individual right, and wages would be indexed to the consumer price index. (The minister is not being named here because we could not get him to clarify). But the President's address is silent on both these aspects. When C P Joshi, the Rural Development Minister was asked about the omission, he said, "Whatever we said in the manifesto we will see to it we will implement it."
The President has also said nothing about another Congress promise: community kitchens in cities for homeless people and migrants, which are necessary because they will not be able to encash the government's commitment to provide wheat and rice at specially discounted prices for the poor. It is quite likely that these will be implemented in the later years, after getting a fix on the cost.
But the government has agreed to set up cells in districts to redress NREGS grievances and get audit done by social action groups. It will throw open the scheme to skilled workers like masons and mesh it with other programmes (whose funds can be used for material like cement, as in Tamil Nadu) to answer criticism that the scheme does not create durable assets. A monitoring unit in the Prime Minister's office, an independent evaluator in the Planning Commission, and annual people's reports on the flagship schemes should help check that bane of NREGS: corruption.
More about Vivian Fernandes
Economic Policy Editor - CNBC TV18
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