The Hindu Business Line : NREGA and rural employment: In Orissa, corruption robs the poor

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NREGA and rural employment: In Orissa, corruption robs the poor

In reality, the Rural Employment Scheme has made virtually no impact on the livelihood security of Orissa’s rural poor. Unless transparency safeguards incorporated in the NREGS are implemented in letter and spirit, the scheme may just sound radical on paper, hijacked as it has been by petty officials.

— V.V. Krishnan

Widespread hunger, poverty and deprivation in Orissa’s Bolangir district are demeaning and dehumanising.

Parshuram Rai

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is arguably the most progressive legislation in post-Independent India. Implemented in letter and spirit, this historic Act has the potential to transform Rural India. But corruption keeps the NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) from fulfilling its promise as it has in Orissa.

Rupa Majhi ,a poor Adivasi of Palsipada village in Kalahandi district, was actually given 21 days of employment and paid Rs 600 as wages during 2006-07. He was given this wage employment on a road construction project executed under the high-profile anti-poverty programme NREGS. But, on his job card, it is falsely written that he had worked for 336 days. The online job card of Rupa Majhi posted on NREGS Web site has a third-version of work and payment details. As per the fake entries on the NREGS Web site, Rupa Majhi was given 102 days of wage employment and paid Rs 6,310 as wages. So, out of Rs 6,310, only Rs 600 actually came in the hands of Rupa Majhi. The remaining Rs 5,710 — which is more than 90 per cent of the total wage payment made in the name of Rupa Majhi — has been siphoned off and misappropriated by the government officials.

Chandra Majhi of Palsipada village has not received any employment under the rural job scheme. But, in his job card (hard copy), there is fake entry of 126 days. On the NREGS Web site, 108 days of employment and Rs 5,940 as wages have been falsely shown in the name of Chandra Majhi. In this case,100 per cent of the wages has been eaten up by the government officials. The stories of Rupa Majhi and Chandra Majhi are not isolated cases of financial bungling and misappropriation of NREGS funds in Orissa. This is the story of about 13 lakh poor households of Orissa who were given wage employment under the NREGS during 2006-07.

One of the poorest states with a very high percentage of rural population living in abject poverty and chronic hunger, Orissa was allocated Rs 890 crore under NREGS. In 2006-07, it was able to spend Rs 733 crore. The official records of the State government state that Orissa provided 7.99 crore person-days employment to 13,94,169 households in 2006-07. In other words, every needy and demanding family in the State was given an average 57 days of wage employment during the year. Not a single needy household was denied wage employment in 19 NREGS districts of the State. Orissa also claims that 1,54,118 families in the State completed 100 days of wage employment during 2006-7.

Reality Bites

A random survey in 100 villages of Orissa reveals the hollowness of these claims. Conducted in the State’s six poorest districts of the KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) region — Bolangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Koraput, Nabarangpur and Rayagada — the survey by the Delhi-based Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) uncovered that of Rs 733 crore spent under NREGS, more than Rs 500 crore was unaccounted for, probably siphoned off and misappropriated by government officials.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that, on the ground, less than 2 crore person-days employment has been provided while more than 6 crore person-days employment has been provided on false job cards and fabricated muster rolls.

In fact, not more than five days of average employment has been given to each of the needy families in 19 NREGS districts of the State and large number of needy families were denied employment.

The research team did not find a single family in the 100 sample villages who had actually got 100 days of wage employment. Very few families got 20-40 days; the rest mostly between five-21 days, if at all.

Thirty-seven out of 100 sample villages received no wage employment whatsoever. More than 40 villages had job and wage entries, on an average four or five times the actual numbers.

Online job cards of most of these households, however, have false and fabricated job and wage entries for varying periods ranging between 111 and fifty-two days. This is the way Orissa has spent Rs 733 crore and provided about 8 crore person-days employment.

the cost of corruption

The unaccounted NREGA funds of Rs 500 crore would have given about 90 days of wage employment to about 10 lakh poor families of Orissa had things worked out the way they should have. In other words, each of these 10 lakh poorest families would have got Rs 5,000 per family as wages. In the context of poverty and hunger that plague these families, this amount would have given four-six months of two subsistence meals or one meal for the whole year.

Ten lakh families have been deprived even that one meal for the whole year. Small wonder that last month hundreds of Adivasis have died in Rayagada, Koraput and Kalahandi districts of Orissa due to ‘cholera’ ‘hunger’ ‘lack of food’ and ‘malnutrition’.

Current levels of hunger, poverty and deprivation in Orissa’s KBK region are deep, demeaning and dehumanising despite the apparently successful implementation of the NREGS with the highest per capita allocation of funds anywhere in the country. In reality, the Rural Employment Scheme has made virtually no impact on the livelihood security of Orissa’s rural poor with little let up in the level of distress migration of Adivasis and Dalits from the regions in search of livelihood elsewhere.

The provision of Social Audit included in the NREG Act is virtually non-existent. There has been no social audit whatsoever in any of the 100 villages visited by the research teams. There is no accountability and/or transparency in the administration of NREGS; in none of the 100 villages visited, did the team find a single Panchayat office open and functioning. Villagers held that these offices open only once or twice a month.

In reality, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) have been completely sidelined in the implementation of NREGS with the village-level workers calling the shots; they get the sarpanches to sign on blank cheques and jealously guard muster rolls. The team could not meet a single person in these 100 villages who had ever seen muster rolls of the NREGS works in his village. Villagers who work in NREGS projects are made to sign on blank muster rolls.

Unless transparency safeguards incorporated in the NREGS are implemented in letter and spirit, the scheme may just sound radical on paper hijacked as it has been by petty officials. For it to succeed, the NREGS must be handed over to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). This may warrant a few amendments to the current Act, but if the scheme has to serve its purpose there may be no alternative.

(The author is director of Delhi-based Centre for Environment & Food Security. He can be reached at: parshuramray@yahoo.com.)

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