The Hindu Business Line : Of jobs and votes

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government’s decision to extend the rural job guarantee scheme to the entire nation has been taken obviously with an eye on the elections. Ever since the late Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, fought successfully on the Garibi Hatao (eliminate poverty) platform in 1971, parties have recognised that electoral success or defeat hinges on their ability to carry one decisive message or project that appeals to the vo ter. Equally, if the voters are unimpressed, defeat stares them in the face as it happened with the ‘India Shining’ campaign launched by the previous National Democratic Alliance Government. The present Government has reasons to feel that the rural jobs scheme launched a year-and-a-half back has the ingredients of a winning strategy. Even if the somewhat fragile equation with the Left parties holds till the full term of the present Lok Sabha, the intervening period provides the ruling alliance an opportunity to fine-tune the scheme before going to the masses with an appeal for an independent mandate.

While the concept of rural jobs scheme is not new--the integrated rural development programmes have been around since the early 1980s--the present Government can certainly take credit for conceiving it on such a large scale. The concept of a guaranteed dole in case the Government is unable to offer an applicant a job in any project is the other novel feature although one suspects that this has not been invoked by beneficiaries under the scheme.

Now that the scheme has been extended to the whole country, the Government would do well to focus on some of the problems in implementation. The administrative machinery right down to the villages is clearly unequal to the task of scaling up the activity to the required level to ensure guaranteed employment for the 100 days. This should be remedied if the Government is not to lose its credibility. Some districts are predominantly urban in character and quite inappropriate for the kind of projects that are currently operational, given the rural focus of the jobs guarantee scheme. In the first months, the scheme has already caused a structural shift in the supply of rural jobs with consequences for wage levels for some of the traditional farm-related activities. How small and marginal farmers are going to cope with the additional pressure for a hike in wages or the dent in farm incomes that any hike in wages must necessarily trigger, are issues that needs to be handled with sensitivity. For all its limitations, the scheme has demonstrated that it is possible to put in place an e-governance structure that has accommodated thousands of small-ticket development activities and co-opted the civil society. If this ushers in reform of public administration on a larger scale, the rural jobs scheme would have served its purpose.

Related Stories:
Govt spend on rural job scheme below half-way mark
Rural job guarantee Act extended to entire country

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