Government’s move to converge several schemes under different ministries into the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme would curtail employment opportunities in rural areas, the CPI(M) claimed today.
“It (convergence) can help state governments in increasing workdays but if you look at it from the micro point of view, it may curtail employment opportunities that a family has been availing so far,” party’s politburo member Brinda Karat told PTI.
Citing an example, she said that if three adults of a family were able to get work under three different government schemes, only one of them would be able to get work after the convergence with NREGA which provides for 100-day employment to only one member of a family.
The Centre has decided to converge rural development schemes as well as various schemes of the ministries of agriculture, water resources and environment and forests with that of NREGA to achieve a synergy among these programmes.
The rural development ministry has even issued several guidelines and advisories to the state governments in this regard.
Ms. Karat suggested that if there has to be convergence of various schemes with that of NREGA, the government should increase the number of workdays guaranteed under the rural employment guarantee Act. The CPI(M) also observed that government was not able to provide 100 days work “except in small percentage of cases”.
“Why is it so that you cannot provide 100 days work? One of the crucial reasons behind it is the schematic approach in the Act and in the minds of people sitting in Delhi as to the works which are permissible,” Ms. Karat said. She claimed NREGA, at present, “basically means digging tanks or other water works”.
“In our country, there are so many regional differences.... Some states which are dry and arid. They would benefit if a programme is centralised on water like Rajasthan. But this can not be applicable for each state,” she said.
The CPI(M) leader suggested that to ensure increase in number of workdays, government should allow inclusion of more works under the Act.
She lamented that her party had suggested that the Centre allow employment of tea garden workers under NREGA in West Bengal but it was not accepted.
“There are tea gardens, closed tea gardens, bushes have to be protected. So we said why can’t the workers of the closed tea gardens get work under NREGA? So this was a very sensible proposal that was not accepted by the Central government,” she said.
