Economic and Political Weekly July 22, 20063198

BELA BHATIA, JEAN DRÈZE

“Koi parivartan nahi hua. Pehalebhi saag-gethi khate the. Aab bhivahi khate hai” (Nothing has

changed. Earlier we used to survive on‘saag’ and roots, and we are eating the sametoday also). Thus spoke Jago Devi of Kusu-matand village (Palamu district of Jhar-khand) when we met her recently. We firstmet her four years ago after it was reportedthat her husband had died of starvation.She lived in abysmal poverty at thattime and her situation did look much thesame today.

One difference is that today Jago Devihas a job card. However, she is not surewhat this card actually means, exceptfor a vague hope of employment.Twenty days earlier, she said, about 30labourers had been employed on the ex-cavation of a pond in Kusumatand, butshe was turned away. The contractorswho had organised the work ensuredthat their own kith and kin were employedfirst.

Jago Devi’s situation is typical of otherrural poor in Palamu district today.The National Rural Employment Guaran-tee Act (NREGA) came into force inPalamu on February 2, 2006, but little hashappened beyond the distribution of jobcards, itself fraught with problems. Em-ployment generation has been very lim-ited, and where jobs were provided, wagepayments were delayed for longperiods and always below thestatutory minimum.

This is, in a nutshell, the picture emerg-ing from a recent study of the implemen-tation of NREGA in two districts ofJharkhand: Palamu and Latehar. The sur-vey was conducted by students fromDelhi University and JawaharlalNehru University in May 2006. They weredivided into two teams of approximately15 each, and spent about two weeks inManika block (Latehar) and Manatu block(Palamu), respectively. In each block, theteam visited a sample of worksites, inter-viewed labourers and conducted a house-hold survey in two villages. The teamsalso used this opportunity to informlabourers about the provisions ofNREGA, especially their entitlementsunder the act. There were also extensiveinteractions with government officials(from ‘panchayat sevak’ to deputy com-missioner), elected representatives andlocal NGOs. At the end of the survey,‘jan sunwais’ (public hearings) were heldat the block headquarters in Manika andManatu.

This article discusses various aspects ofthe implementation of NREGA in thelight of this field investigation. Beforewe proceed, two qualifications are due.First, this article is based primarily onfirst-hand observations from the fieldsurvey (our own as well as those of othermembers of the survey teams). Formalanalysis of the survey data awaits thecompletion of similar surveys in otherstates. Second, it should be borne inmind that the survey took place inremote and deprived areas. It may not be

representative of the general situation inJharkhand as a whole.

Status of NREGA in Jharkhand

Twenty of Jharkhand’s 22 districts arein the list of 200 districts where the NREGAcame into force on February 2, 2006.Under this act, every state government isbound to launch a rural employmentguarantee scheme within six months of theact coming into force. In Jharkhand, thescheme is still in the process of beingdrafted. Meanwhile, NREGA has beeninitiated within the framework of theearlier National Food for Work Programme(NFFWP) and Sampoorna GrameenRozgar Yojana (SGRY), based on theoperational guidelines issued by the min-istry of rural development in January 2006(hereafter “Guidelines”) as well as furtherstate guidelines.

Judging from our experience in Manikaand Manatu, there is no doubt that thecoming into force of NREGA has becomea matter of great interest in rural areas.There is growing awareness of the promiseof “100 days of employment for everyhousehold” and widespread demand forjob cards. Government officials such asblock development officers (BDOs) andpanchayat sevaks are having to devote aconsiderable part of their work time toNREGA-related matters, due not only toorders from the top, but also to risingpressures from below. The practical re-sults so far leave much to be desired, asdiscussed further on, but nevertheless thisactivation of the local administration showsthe potential effect of NREGA on govern-ment priorities. Realising this potential,however, depends on public mobilisationof a kind that has only begun to happenin these areas.

Low Awareness

Even though there is growing publicawareness of NREGA as a new initiativeto provide rural employment, there wasvery little understanding of the basic fea-tures of the act in the survey area. Forinstance, the “job card” is another card thatpeople know they are supposed to get (likethe BPL ‘lal card’), but most people arenot clear about the entitlements associated

Employment Guarantee inJharkhand: Ground RealitiesA recent survey in two districts of Jharkhand found manyserious flaws in the implementation of the new National RuralEmployment Guarantee Scheme. Some of them could be explainedas teething problems. As the experience of Rajasthan shows, thereis scope for better implementation. All said and done, NREGA hascreated a sense of hope amongst the rural poor. This sense of hopecan be further strengthened if people understand that the act givesthem employment as a matter of right, and that claiming this rightis within the realm of possibility.

Insight

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with the job card. Further, few peopleunderstand that after getting a job card theyneed to apply for work in order to getemployment. In that sense the fundamentalprinciple of employment guarantee (em-ployment on demand) is yet to sink in.Similarly, there is very little awareness ofother entitlements such as employmentwithin 15 days, minimum wages, weeklywage payments, worksite facilities andunemployment allowance – not to speak ofthe right to scrutinise all NREGA-relateddocuments.

Even among concerned governmentofficials, there is little awareness of thebasic features of the act. For instance, wewere startled to learn that the Hindi versionof the Guidelines was not available any-where in the two sample districts – noteven in the office of the district collector.Similarly, training programmes for keyofficials have barely started, five monthsafter the Guidelines instructed state gov-ernments to organise such programmes ona priority basis.

Job Cards

Under NREGA, all rural households areentitled to apply for a “job card”. Regis-tering applications and issuing job cardsis the responsibility of the gram panchayat.In Jharkhand, however, there are no grampanchayats, as panchayat elections havenot been held since 1978. This institutionalgap is a major stumbling block in theimplementation of NREGA.

In the absence of gram panchayats, thedistribution of job cards and related re-sponsibilities have been assigned to thepanchayat sevaks. This arrangement is farfrom satisfactory. For one thing, there aretoo few panchayat sevaks, and while eachpanchayat sevak is supposed to look aftera single panchayat, in practice many ofthem deal with two or even three pancha-yats. For another, panchayat sevakshave many other responsibilities andthe distribution of job cards is a furtheraddition to an excessive work burden.This situation reflects another stum-bling block in the implementation ofNREGA: the general lack of staff at alllevels. Crucial gaps include programmeofficers at the block level, gram rozgarsevaks at the panchayat level, supervisors,engineers, etc. In the absence of the re-quired appointments, these responsi-bilities have been assigned to existingofficers such as the BDOs and panchayatsevaks.

In spite of this shortage of staff, thedistribution of job cards is under way inboth Manika and Manatu. However, manyirregularities were found in this process:the applicants often had to purchase theapplication form (for as much as Rs 10 insome cases); many have also been charged(up to Rs 60) for the photographs; oralapplications as well as applications on plainpaper have not been permitted; bribes havebeen extracted while delivering the jobcards; and most importantly, applicationsfrom households not listed in the BPLcensus 2002 have been rejected.1 The lastirregularity is a gross violation of the actand Guidelines, which clearly state that allrural households are entitled to job cards.

A related irregularity is the denial ofseparate job cards to nuclear families liv-ing together as a joint household. Accord-ing to the Guidelines, each nuclear familyis entitled to a separate job card. This point,however, has not been clearly conveyedto the panchayat sevaks. In fact, even theBDO in Manatu was convinced that a jointfamily should have a single job card.

Behind these irregularities is a patternof “hide and seek” whereby governmentofficials are trying to restrict the numberof job cards that are issued. This helpsthem to evade their full responsibilitiesand keep the workload under control. Asa result, universal entitlements get con-fined to specific households and divisionsof interests are created within the ruralsociety.

It is also worth noting that the designof job cards in Jharkhand is quite defec-tive. For instance, there is no space torecord wage payments. This defeats oneof the main purposes of the job card, i e,to ensure that labourers are in possessionof an official record of the wages paid tothem. Similarly, there is no space to recordthe quantum of work done, or paymentsof unemployment allowances. Last but notleast, people’s entitlements under the acthave not been printed on the back of thejob card, as directed in the Guidelines.Thus, a crucial opportunity has been missedto ensure wide awareness of the basicfeatures of the act from the very beginning,at no extra cost.

Demand for Work

As mentioned earlier, most people in thesurvey areas do not understand that inorder to get employment under NREGA,they have to apply for it. As a result, whilethe distribution of job cards is well under

way, the process of work application hasnot even begun.

An odd situation has developed in Manikaand Manatu whereby many people havejob cards and there is an acute need forwork, yet very little employment has beencreated under NREGA. So far, employ-ment generation under NREGA has beenconfined to the continuation or executionof works planned earlier under NFFWPand now renamed as NREGA works. InManika, the BDO was unable to give figuresfor current employment under NREGA inthe block, but the field survey suggests thatthe total number of labourers employedwas unlikely to be more than a few hun-dred, out of a total population of 64,000.A similar situation prevailed in Manatu.

At this stage, further progress of NREGAdepends first and foremost on a concertedawareness campaign to activate the workapplication process. The basic rules of thisprocess should become common knowl-edge: for example, that individual orcollective applications can be submitted atany time either to the gram panchayat orto the programme officer (in this case theBDO); that applications on plain paper areallowed; that a dated receipt should begiven to the applicant, etc. The last pro-vision is essential to enable applicants toclaim the unemployment allowance if workis not provided within 15 days.

Wage Payments

A range of problems and irregularitiesemerged in relation to wage payments.Four issues deserve special mention: fudg-ing of muster rolls, flawed work measure-ment, non-payment of minimum wagesand delays in wage payments.

A muster roll is a document that hasmuch power. This is the only written recordof the work done at a particular worksite,the number of labourers employed, theperson days of employment and wagesdue. It is also the crucial document used toclaim funds from higher authorities. Theperson who has the muster roll in hiscustody, therefore, has a lot of clout. TheNREGA Guidelines (and indeed, the actitself) lay much emphasis on the transpar-ency of muster rolls. In particular, theyrequire muster rolls to be available at theworksites.

In Manika and Manatu, the muster rollswere supposed to be maintained by the‘abhikarta’ (the supervisor in charge of aparticular worksite). More often than not,the abhikarta was hard to locate, and once

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found, very reluctant to disclose the musterrolls. In all cases where the survey teamwas able to see the muster roll, it turnedout to be a “‘kaccha’ muster roll”: a simplenotebook, often poorly maintained, usedto record daily attendance. The standardpractice seems to be to maintain kacchamuster rolls as long as the work is inprogress, and to transfer the attendancedetails to the “‘pacca’ muster rolls” lateron.2 Needless to say, this practice opensthe door to massive fudging since thefilling of pacca muster rolls is essentiallybeyond scrutiny. The pacca muster rollsare supposed to be signed by labourers atthe time of wage payments, but this is notmuch of a protection against corruptionsince most labourers are unable to verifythe written details, nor do they have anybargaining power to demand correctionsif the details are wrong. Besides, the two-stage completion of muster rolls makes iteasy to enter fake names in the paccamuster rolls.

Since the pacca muster rolls were no-where to be found, the survey teams wereunable to verify their authenticity. InManika, the BDO finally handed a com-pleted muster roll to the survey team onMay 19 – a muster roll pertaining to theconstruction of a kachha road in villageAuratand. However, when the team wentto Auratand to verify this muster roll, itemerged that the BDO had gone there onMay 18, and personally filled this musterroll from the kaccha muster roll (the at-tendance register) in the presence of thepanchayat sevak and abhikarta.3 Interest-ingly, some members of the ‘nigrani samiti’(vigilance committee) were also present.Evidently, this was a window-dressingexercise. The survey team also learnt inAuratand that the work had been com-pleted at the end of March, and that wageshad been paid sometime in April. Sincewages are not supposed to be paid withoutcompleting the muster rolls, two possibili-ties arise. One is that the BDO manufac-tured this new muster roll after destroyingthe muster roll that had actually been usedearlier to make the wage payments. An-other is that wage payments were madewithout completing the muster rolls andgetting them signed by the labourers.4 Inboth cases, the entire process is at variancewith the act and the Guidelines, wherebypacca muster rolls should be kept at theworksites, finalised at the time of wagepayments, displayed at the panchayatbhawan, and submitted to the gram sabhasfor social audit.

Further inspection of the Auratand musterroll pointed to another possible scam.According to this muster roll, labourershad received part payment of wages inkind at the rate of seven kg of rice per day.However, labourers denied having receivedany grain. Instead, they had receivedequivalent payments in cash, with ricebeing valued at the BPL price. Further,according to the BDO a permit had beenissued for lifting this grain from the FCIgodown and the grain had been lifted. Thissuggests that the grain was sold in themarket. This would have been quite lucra-tive since the market price of rice is higherthan the BPL price. In other words, moneyis being made by selling grain in the marketat one rate and giving the cash equivalentto labourers at a lower rate.

Turning to work measurement and wagepayments, two systems were in place: piecerates and daily wages (both are permittedunder the act). Most labourers were paidunder the piece-rate system, known locallyas ‘chauka’. Under this system, they aresupposed to dig a chauka (pit) of pre-specified size (e g, 100 cubic feet in thecase of soft soil) in order to earn theminimum wage of Rs 73. In practice, thissystem raises several problems. To startwith, it typically takes more than a day foran average labourer to complete the speci-fied task, making it hard to earn the statu-tory minimum wage. This is a violation ofthe act, which states that the “schedule ofrates” should be such that a labourerworking for seven hours would normallyearn the minimum wage (Schedule I,Section 8). Further, the schedule of ratesis far from transparent: labourers do notunderstand the variations in rates depend-ing on soil type, depth, etc. Some tasks arenot “counted” at all.5 Finally, there are noproper arrangements for work measure-ment. Effective implementation of thechauka system requires individual mea-surement of the work done, which is vir-tually impossible at present due to shortageof trained personnel. As a short-cut, col-lective measurement tends to be done. Thebottom line is that labourers are unable toverify that the wages paid to them corre-spond to the work done, as per the scheduleof rates. In particular, they are routinelypaid less than the minimum wage, withoutbeing able to protest.

Delays in wage payments are anothermajor issue. Under NREGA, labourers arelegally entitled to being paid every week,and in any case within a fortnight of thework being done. In Manika and Manatu,

however, wage payments were routinelydelayed for weeks or even months. Need-less to say, this causes extreme hardshipto the labourers, all the more so as manyof them belong to some of the poorestadivasi communities of Jharkhand(parhaiyas, cheros, kharwars, bhuiyas,among others). Their frustration was wellcaptured in the words of one labourer.Pointing at the tendu pattas he was making‘paulas’ (bundles) of, he said: “As you cansee in this season we are collecting tendupattas. We make a paula of 50 pattas. Foreach paula we get paid 50-60 paise. Theseason will last for another 15 days but thecontractor will take a month or two to makethe payment. So we go for casual labouron public works. And what happens there?There too we are not paid for months onend. Is the government no better than thetendu contractors?”

Other Implementation Issues

Before concluding, brief mentionshould be made of a few other implemen-tation problems observed in the surveyareas.Worksite facilities: Labourers workingunder NREGA are entitled to basic worksitefacilities such as shade for periods of rest,safe drinking water and first aid. Also, ifmore than five children under the age ofsix are present at the worksite, one of thewoman labourers is supposed to be de-puted to look after them. Except for naturalshade in some cases, none of these facili-ties were available at any of the sampleworksites.Productive assets: There is great potentialfor the creation of much-needed produc-tive assets under NREGA. In the surveyareas there was much scope for buildingrainwater harvesting systems, excavationof tanks, construction of kaccha roads,regeneration of wasteland, etc. The actalso permits land improvement works onland owned by SC/ST families. However,the survey teams found that much of thispotential had been wasted. Most of theworks had not been completed, and werein danger of being washed away in thecoming monsoon. In other cases, the workhad been completed but its productive valuewas doubtful. For example, well-builtkaccha roads would be of great value inboth Manika and Manatu, but the technicalstandards of kaccha roads built underNREGA were very low. Little use has beenmade of the rich experience of road andtank building under drought-relief works

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in other parts of the country, especially thewestern and southern states.Fictitious gram sabhas: Gram sabhas aresupposed to play an active role in theplanning and monitoring of NREGA works.For instance, priority is to be given toproposals formulated by the gram sabha,and regular social audits of all NREGAworks are supposed to be conducted bythem. However, there was no evidence ofNREGA-related gram sabhas being heldin the survey areas. Instead, what seemedto be happening is that contractors andother local vested interests were using thesanction of a fictitious or cosmetic gramsabha to further their own ends. For in-stance, in Manika, NREGA works aresupposed to be implemented by a team oftwo local persons (the abhikarta and‘adhyaksh’) selected by the gram sabha,at least one of whom has to be a woman.In practice, however, most of the abhikartasappeared to be puppets of local con-tractors, when they were not contractorsthemselves.Bicholias: The above-mentioned “contrac-tors” are not necessarily very powerfulthemselves. Most of them are small-time‘bicholias’ (middlemen), as they are knownlocally. These bicholias essentially act asmultipurpose intermediaries between thepeople and the local administration. Theyget the work done, ensure that the officialsget their “cut”, and earn their own commis-sions. For instance, some of them get jobcard application forms from the blockheadquarters and sell them to the applicants,or deliver job cards on behalf of thepanchayat sevaks. Others implementNREGA projects in the name of the of-ficial abhikarta. Their names do not appearon any records, enabling them to vanishquietly in the event where there is anythreat of corruption being exposed. Therewere plenty of bicholias in the survey areas,partly because they act as substitutes forthe non-existent gram panchayats, andpartly because government officials arereluctant to visit the villages, on the groundsthat these are Naxalite areas. The hold ofbicholias on NREGA is a flagrant violationof the act, which clearly states that con-tractors are not allowed. However, remov-ing bicholias is likely to be difficult untilgram panchayats are formed in Jharkhand.

Concluding Remarks

The picture emerging from this briefinvestigation is far from encouraging.As things stand, there is little difference

between NREGA and earlier employmentprogrammes such as NFFWP and SGRY.And the basic purpose of providing employ-ment on demand, at the statutory minimumwage, is nowhere near being achieved.

It is, of course, natural to expect various“teething problems” after the introductionof such an ambitious programme asNREGA. A learning phase is bound to berequired. Yet, it is worth noting that somestates have been much more successfulthan Jharkhand in putting NREGA ontrack. For instance, the preceding findingsare in sharp contrast with those of a similarinvestigation conducted earlier in Dun-garpur district, Rajasthan. In Dungarpur,substantial progress has been made towardseffective implementation of NREGA. Mostrural households have a job card. At thetime of the investigation, in mid-April 2006,about half of all rural households inDungarpur had a member employed onNREGA. However, there were irregulari-ties such as delays in wage payments, non-payment of minimum wages and inad-equate worksite facilities. Nevertheless,NREGA was providing vital employmentopportunities to the rural poor and helpingto revive the local economy. Last but notleast, some headway had been made to-wards implementing the Guidelines relatedto transparency and accountability. Forinstance, muster rolls were available at theworksites and NREGA records were avail-able for public scrutiny. As a result, thescope for corruption had been drasticallyreduced.6

There are several reasons for this sharpcontrast between Dungarpur on the one hand,and Manika and Manatu on the other. First,the absence of gram panchayats in Jharkhandhas created an institutional vacuum at thevillage level. In Dungarpur, by contrast,gram panchayats and gram sabhas are inplace and they have been actively involvedin the planning, implementation and moni-toring of NREGA works. So much so thatcontractors have been largely kept out of theprogramme, as required under the act. InJharkhand, contractors have stepped in asa substitute for the gram panchayats, and aremanipulating the programme to further theirown ends.

Second, Rajasthan has a long traditionof labour-intensive public worksprogrammes, and the required administra-tive arrangements have been improvedover time in the light of experience. Forinstance, the separation of paymentagencies from implementing agencies(a crucial safeguard against corruption)

has been introduced in the context ofdrought-relief works, and continues underNREGA. Similarly, there are well-testedarrangements for work measurement,record-keeping, work inspections andrelated matters. Jharkhand is nowhere nearachieving the same level of administrativecompetence in this field.

Third, the right to information move-ment in Rajasthan has fostered a cultureof transparency and public vigilance. Gov-ernment officials are getting used to thefact that citizens have a right to consultand even to request copies of governmentdocuments. Muster rolls, which weretreated as confidential if not secret docu-ments in Rajasthan not so long ago, arenow available for public scrutiny. At thepanchayat level, too, records were care-fully maintained in Dungarpur. InJharkhand, however, there is still very littleacknowledgement of people’s right toinformation among government officials,and even more limited awareness of itamong ordinary citizens.

Finally, there are important differences inthe politics of NREGA in Rajasthan andJharkhand. In Rajasthan, “employment guar-antee” has been a subject of competitionamong political parties for some time. Whilethe enactment of NREGA is due to the UPAgovernment, the BJP government inRajasthan is clearly “owning” the programmeat the state level. It has seized NREGA asan opportunity to win popular support inrural areas at the cost of the central govern-ment. On the very day when NREGA cameinto force, on February 2, 2006, gram sabhaswere convened throughout Dungarpur dis-trict and registration of applications for jobcards began on a large-scale. Ever since,there has been relentless pressure on theadministration to deliver. Further, employ-ment guarantee has also been a lively issuefor people’s organisations and social move-ments such as Mazdoor Kisan ShaktiSangathan, Akal Sangharsh Samiti andRozgar Evum Suchna ka AdhikarAbhiyan.7 In Jharkhand, by contrast,NREGA still has low priority on the politicalagenda. For instance, very little progress hasbeen made towards framing a rural employ-ment guarantee scheme for Jharkhand, asrequired under the act. Opposition partiesand people’s organisations havealso failed to take the government to taskfor its apathy in this regard.

This situation, however, is not immu-table. In Manika and Manatu, public hear-ings held at the end of the field surveysgave an inspiring glimpse of the potential

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of NREGA as a rallying point for localaction. In Manatu, for instance, about 2,000men and women (mainly poor labourersfrom the surrounding villages) attendedthe public hearing on May 28 and sat withrapt attention for more than six hours asindividual villagers testified on variousaspects of NREGA. The BDO had torespond to a range of pointed questions andpanchayat sevaks from the surroundingpanchayats were also grilled one by one.The local MLA (Videsh Singh), who hadpreviously attempted to scuttle the publichearing, and sent word that anyone whoattended the public hearing would have toface the consequences, eventually showedup himself and stayed for the full durationof the hearing. Aside from helping to createmuch wider awareness of people’s entitle-ments under the act, the public hearingsunderlined the fact that local officials andelected representatives are ultimately ac-countable to the people under NREGA.

All said and done, NREGA has createda sense of hope amongst the rural poor.This sense of hope can be further strength-ened if people understand that the act givesthem employment as a matter of right, andthat claiming this right is within the realmof possibility. Translating this latent energyinto organised public pressure is the bestway to ensure that the implementation prob-lems reviewed in this article are addressedwithout delay.

Email: bela@csdsdelhi.orgjaandaraz@gmail.com

Notes[This article is based on a field investigationconducted in Jharkhand in May 2006 with studentsfrom Delhi University and Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, and planned in collaboration withKaustav Banerjee, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, JayatiGhosh, Himanshu, Reetika Khera and NehaWadhawan. We are grateful to the whole team fora great learning experience. Similar surveys arealso taking place in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradeshand Andhra Pradesh.]

1 According to official data presented by Y BPrasad (Xavier Institute of Social Service,Ranchi) at a workshop held in Ranchi on May29, 2006, 1.5 lakh applications for job cardshave been rejected in Jharkhand. The mainreason for rejection was that the applicanthousehold had not been listed in the BPL census2002. The BPL census was supposed to be acensus of all rural households aimed, at theidentification of households below the povertyline. In practice, however, many householdswere missed and these households do not havea BPL census number. This appears to have beenused as an excuse to refuse job cards to thesehouseholds, on the grounds that the serial

numbers of job cards are supposed to be basedon the same coding system as in the BPL census(according to the operational guidelines).Sometimes eligibility for job cards has also beendenied to households who do not have a BPLcard even if they were listed in the BPL census.As a matter of fact, the operational guidelinesdo not require the serial number of a job cardto be the same as the serial number of theconcerned household in the BPL census. TheGuidelines only require the coding system tobe the same. There is, thus, absolutely nojustification for denying job cards to householdsthat do not have a BPL census number, let alonedenying cards to those who are listed but do nothave a BPL card (i e, APL households).

2 This practice was already observed in May 2005in an earlier survey of the National Food forWork Programme in Palamu [see Bhaskar 2005],and also in the neighbouring districts of Surguja(Chhattisgarh) and Sonebhadra (Uttar Pradesh).It is likely to have a long history.

3 The BDO himself admitted this later on. Healso accepted that the muster roll he had handedto the survey team had only 53 names, whilethe attendance register had 126 names. Thereason, he said, is that he “ran out of time” tocomplete the pacca muster roll on May 18.Therefore, he instructed the abhikarta to continuefilling the muster roll in the same manner afterhis departure. His explanation for the entireoperation is that he was “training” theabhikarta to fill the new NREGA muster rolls,which are a little different from the NFFWPmuster rolls.

4 The labourers said that they had signed“something” at the time of wage payments, butit was not clear whether this document was thepacca muster roll or something else.

5 For instance, labourers are often required tocarry the earth and throw it some distance away,without additional payments being made for thistask (known as “lift and lead”), even though itis officially included in the schedule of rates.Sometimes, husband and wife end up working

together for the whole day on a single chauka,with the husband digging and the wife carryingthe earth, and earning (say) Rs 73 between thetwo of them, i e, as little as Rs 37.50 per personper day.

6 For further details, see Sivakumar (2006). Inan earlier survey of the National Food for WorkProgramme, conducted in May-June 2005 in sixstates (Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh,Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and WestBengal), it had already emerged that Rajasthanwas doing considerably better than other states,particularly in terms of the implementation oftransparency measures; see Drèze (2005).

7 Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (a workers’organisation based on south Rajasthan) has along-standing commitment to the right to workand the right to information. Akal SangharshSamiti is a network of organisations that cametogether during the 2001 drought, to campaignfor the rights of drought-affected people, andbeyond that, for the right to food and the rightto work. Both played an important role in thecampaign for an Employment Guarantee Act,and were actively involved in preparing the firstdraft of the act (submitted to the NationalAdvisory Council on July 16, 2004). RozgarEvum Suchna ka Adhikar Abhiyan organisedthe Dungarpur padyatra in April 2006 [seeSivakumar 2006] and continues to work foreffective implementation of the National RuralEmployment Guarantee Act and the Right toInformation Act in Rajasthan.

References

Bhaskar, Anjor (2005): ‘The National Food forWork Programme in Palamu District ofJharkhand’, available at www.right tofoodindia.org/data/nffwp2005palamau.doc.

Drèze, Jean (2005): ‘Loot for Work Programme’,Times of India, July 2.

Sivakumar, Sowmya (2006): ‘Walking with aPurpose’, Frontline, May 6-19.

EPW

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