The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Food for work

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 14, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Food for work

By Sushma Ramachandran

The new Government should ensure that food-forwork programmes adhere to the basic principle of distributing food rather than cash.

THE NEW Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, has reason to be grateful to the National Democratic Alliance Government for handing him charge of an economy in reasonably good shape. Mr. Chidambaram himself has conceded this fact publicly and pointed out that the growth rate is adequate, foreign exchange reserves are comfortable and rate of inflation is well under control. He clearly aims to build on this positive edifice and even made a swift visit to Mumbai to assure corporates and stock market investors that the era of reforms is not yet over.

But the Finance Minister will not only have to woo back the constituency of corporates that was loyal to the NDA but also work at winning over another much larger constituency that has been mostly ignored ever since the launch of economic reforms. This is the area that the Common Minimum Programme highlights — agriculture and rural development.

This is the constituency that was slowly downgraded over the years since economic reforms were launched in 1991. While political parties may deny that poverty alleviation has been given low priority, the fact is that such programmes have virtually fallen by the wayside over the last 12 or 13 years. The Congress blames the Bharatiya Janata Party for this neglect but the process began in 1991 when the focus of economic reforms was on unshackling industry from the licence raj regime. Even at that time, there was a feeling that the anti-poverty programmes were not really succeeding and a faster growth rate would ultimately be the real solution to banish poverty.

The programmes were launched in a big way by Indira Gandhi in a big way after winning elections on the Garibi Hatao slogan. The country wide food-for-work programme was begun after the experiment of the similar Employment Guarantee Scheme was pronounced a success in Maharashtra. Mrs. Gandhi extended it to the entire country, achieving the dual purpose of using the country's huge foodgrain stocks, which even at that time were being kept in open storages, and also of creating employment for the poorest of the poor.

The other country-wide scheme was the Integrated Rural Development Programme, which involved bank credit for small projects meant again for the poorest of the poor. It was largely in reference to this programme that Rajiv Gandhi later said that of the one rupee of development assistance meant for the poor, only five paise actually reached the poor. The IRDP became notorious for corruption with bank officials conniving with local leaders to provide credit to different people for the purchase of the same cows or buffaloes.

Significantly, the CMP has signalled that poverty alleviation programmes are back on the Government's agenda. The statement that a massive food-for-work programme will be launched throughout the country indicates that these schemes will once again be accorded priority. What remains to be seen is whether the shortcomings of the earlier programmes will be ironed out this time round. The food-for-work programme ran into a dead end largely because State Governments were reluctant to lift grain and transport it to the districts where work was being carried out. They had often asked that they be allowed to make payment in cash to workers on the projects rather than pay in grain because the physical and financial costs of moving these stocks was considered an avoidable effort. They felt the easy way out was to pay at least partly in cash rather than fully in foodgrain.

Payment in cash to workers for these short-term projects, however, defeats the entire purpose of the food-for-work programme. The objective is to use surplus grain for the poorest of the poor and simultaneously ensure that durable assets are created while giving gainful employment to these people. By cash payment, the aim of ensuring that the worker has sufficient food for his family is not met. It is thus essential for the new Government to ensure that the food-for-work programme taken up now adheres to the basic principle of distributing food rather than cash.

Besides, monitoring agencies like the Planning Commission need to play an active role in ensuring that any flaws in the scheme are ironed out and the programme achieves the objective of poverty alleviation. Many reviews have been carried out by the Commission and it is high time that these are ultimately used to improve and upgrade the programmes that began with so much hope and idealism many years ago.

This time round the Central Government has to play a proactive role otherwise State Governments will continue to raise issues like transport costs for not implementing the programme. The kind of employment under the programme has also to be considered and whether durable assets are actually created rather than short roads to nowhere as was the case in the past. Instead of rushing ahead with the programme, some thought must be given to the structure to ensure that the scheme actually succeeds in the basic aim of providing food for work to the poorest of the poor.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

UTTAR PRADESH ON THE BOIL

BOOSTING SOUTH-SOUTH TRADE

The UPA and the Cauvery dispute

Food for work

Tasks before the BJP national executive in Mumbai

Kashmir: process is the product

The Olympic flame

Unwarranted

Troops to Iraq