Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

The potential has not even begun to be explored, but it is greater than the green revolution. It is perhaps also more significant, for, it will not be confined to the relatively better off irrigated areas, and will directly benefit the poor.

Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

Real needs: Capital investment and infrastructure improvement can make an impact on a farmer’s everyday life.

Somewhat surprisingly, little notice has been taken of the contribution of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) to directing capital investment to rural areas — and to agriculture in particular. Of course, the guarantee of 100 days of wage employment is without doubt the primary objective of the legislation, and the wage earned is of enormous importance to the household — there are innumerable examples from across the country of how the programme has enabled children to go to school, improved nutrition within the family, increased wages, reduced indebtedness and migration and significantly, even empowered the poor. And directly, 5.2 crore households (2.1 in 2006-07 and 3.1 in 2007-08) have so far been provided 220 crore person-days of employment, in which the participation by scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and women has been high.

But the employment guarantee has another important aspect — the wages go to create assets, and these also, are an integral part of the programme. There are already reports of how this has begun to happen — in Wayanad district of Kerala, elephant trenches now protect crops in hundreds of acres which earlier were destroyed year after year; in the Sunderbans, illegal fishing has given way to irrigated farming owing to the construction of field channels to bring water; water tables have risen in “backward” districts across the country because of tanks, check dams, anicuts, bunding and other such works; in fact, in Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, where the digging of wells was banned for years, the groundwater situation has improved so much that wells have now been permitted; in Villupuram district there are villages where drinking water wells save time and effort of women who no longer have to carry potable water over long distances. These are all productive assets which yield direct benefits to the village.

Such investments are particularly relevant today, when there is all-round concern at the slow rate of growth in agriculture (just 2.6 per cent), and the solution is seen in directing capital to rural areas — highlighted both in the Economic Survey and the Budget for 2008-09.

In fact the Act itself spells out the types of works permitted — it focuses on the creation of durable assets, especially for water conservation. The information from the field in the first year (for which details are available) shows that 75 per cent of the 8.3 lakh works have been water-harvesting structures, minor irrigation tanks, community wells, land development, flood control, plantations and so on. Benefits include the creation of over 12 crore cubic metres of water storage capacity, three lakh km of drainage and embankments in water logged areas, 3.5 lakh hectares each of plantations and land development. These contribute also to drought proofing in low rainfall and semi-desert regions. They, moreover, give immediate returns; for, the works are generally managed by the village community and it requires only the first monsoon to utilise the water or to cultivate land developed and readied for farming. This experience is clearly quite contrary to the common understanding of rural works as the construction of roads which are washed away with each monsoon.

These assets are in the most backward pockets of the country — arid, tribal, often inaccessible — where only marginal investments, or none at all, would have gone in the ordinary course. This is also of special relevance today with greater concern for water, global warming and climate change.

Although less than half the works taken up during the year were completed by March 2007, their execution is a continuous process and more would have been completed by the end of the working season in June. The expenditure was also not insubstantial — about Rs. 9,000 crores. The average expenditure per district was Rs. 45 crores, but this went up to more than Rs. 100 crores in some States. Such levels of investment on these works, sustained over the years, will have a visible impact on the landscape of rural India.

A refreshing feature of the employment guarantee is that the maintenance of the assets, including care of plantations, is provided for in the programme. There is, therefore, no dependence on additional funds each year to ensure their continuing productivity.

While too much should not be read from the reports of one year, it is interesting that this trend continued also in the second year. There seems little doubt that the NREGP projects are a valuable and timely investment in rural infrastructure.

A legitimate question then is regarding the potential of NREGP projects for capital formation. That this is substantial, should be clear from just one illustration.

Works can also be taken up on individuals land holdings — but only of the poor — members of the SCs, STs, households below the poverty line (BPL), those benefited from land reforms. The activities include land development, provision of irrigation and horticulture.

According to the figures of the Ministry of Rural Development, the poor possess more than 15 million hectares of land — government assigned, ceiling surplus and bhoodan, as recorded tenants, lands restored to tribal communities. At present, these lands are often left fallow or produce one crop with a low yield. Such lands invariably have no source of irrigation, are away from the village and are undeveloped. But they share an important feature — they are invariably in compact blocks and are therefore suitable for integrated development packages. These holdings could therefore be transformed into productive farming units, often with irrigation from wells, tanks, other water harvesting structures, lift irrigation schemes.

This happened in Maharashtra under the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) started in the 1970s. Investments were made on private land holdings for land development, irrigation and plantations, and medium and large farmers took advantage to bring in a horticulture revolution — the area under fruit crops went up almost six-fold, from 1.7 lakh ha to 9.7 lakh ha in the 10 years 1990-2000. If similar works under the employment guarantee are taken up on the lands of the poor, the 15 million hectares will make a perceptible contribution to agricultural production. Let us recall that the gross area under high yielding varieties of wheat and paddy after the green revolution was about 35 million hectares, and that this transformed the food grains scenario in India.

The Common Minimum Programme of the UPA and the recently announced Land Policy both emphasise precisely such programmes. The NREGA provides the opportunity to make it happen — not as a welfare measure, but rather as an assertion of the contribution which the poor make to India’s development. Capital investments in rural infrastructure at its best, for, benefits go directly to the poor — there is perhaps a lesson here for the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).

There are other possibilities, many of which do not require additional funds; only a reorientation of existing schemes, coordination in decision making between the Centre and the States, and integrated action in implementation. Thus, programmes for watershed development, drinking water, agriculture, horticulture, farming systems, fisheries, handlooms, handicrafts — each can synergise with the employment guarantee, enhance production from rural areas, increase the contribution of the primary sector to the economy and impact on the GDP. There are several examples of how this can be done for different occupational groups like marginal farmers, fishermen, weavers, landless agriculture labour — godowns, worksheds, common facility centres, small harbours, plantations on common lands with tree pattas and so on. The potential has not even begun to be explored, but it is greater than the green revolution. It is perhaps also more significant, for, it will not be confined to the relatively better off irrigated areas, and will directly benefit the poor.

There have undoubtedly been problems, also reports of leakages and misappropriation, inefficiencies in implementation. However, as the draft CAG report has pointed out, there is not even enough staff, and what little there is, is not trained for the work and responsibilities cast upon it by the employment guarantee; there is also no arrangement for planning at the field level, no Annual Plans by the gram panchayat, inadequate systems for supervision and control. The legacy of earlier wage employment schemes has continued, with the predominance of official decision making, often in combination with the influence of powerful local interests. This is changing, but slowly. We need to put in place a stronger support structure as recommended also by the CAG. It is necessary to invest in systems and enable them to stabilise for democratic annual plans, for effective implementation and accountability to become the norm at the panchayat, block and district levels.

Capital formation under the employment guarantee programme has taken place in spite of these severe handicaps. Much more can be achieved. There has been an aggressive urgency in attracting overseas capital to India; can a similar concern also be shown for a programme of capital investment that we ourselves have initiated, and one which has great potential and meaning for the nation’s development?

At the policy level there appears to be a diffidence about the NREGA, and a predilection towards wanting to come to the conclusion that it has failed. It is simply not enough to legislate, budget and leave it to a single ministry to deliver a transformation. It is essential also to plan for, to invest in, and to put in place, the mechanisms and the personnel required for its successful implementation — otherwise we would only be planning for its failure. This programme is more difficult and far more complex than the green revolution was, but it has not been given the priority, the drive and the urgency it deserves.

There is all round concern at the slow rate of growth in agriculture and the allied sectors, at the widening gulf between urban and rural areas and at the growing disparities between the rich and the poor. The Employment Guarantee can make a vital difference. But to recognise, and act on this, requires determination — and the will.

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