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Monu, a Santhali single mother in Birbhum district of West Bengal labors on others' farms during paddy sowing and harvesting seasons earning Rs. 70 a day for 3 months in the year. She has no other livelihood, and routinely borrows from her employer.
Bijnesh, a landless man in Gajapati district of Orissa weaves bamboo baskets while his aged father prepares the bamboo strips. It costs Rs. 170 and requires 2 days of labor to prepare the huge basket, which sells for Rs. 400 during the harvest season. Rest of the year, he plays dhol (drum) with a wandering musical group.
Bijnesh weaves bamboo storage baskets in harvest season
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is supposed to benefit people like Monu and Bijnesh. Yet neither has received the guaranteed “100 days work.” In many places NREGA has fallen prey to the existing power structure in the villages. In a remote village high up on the mountains of Gajapati district, an ex-contractor took charge of NREGA. People got no more than 10 days of work. In a tribal village on Ayodhya hills of Purulia district, an unlettered man told us that he had been cheated. His job card showed 12 days of work with a wage of Rs. 73.92 per day while he had got only 5 days of work at Rs 60 a day. Minimum wage is Rs. 68. A young man helped him uncover the discrepancy between his job card and what he had actually received.
In contrast, a visit to the village in Davangere district of Karnataka revealed that almost all households had received more than 100 days of work in 2007. Samaj Parivartan Samuday, a long term AID partner has worked here at the grassroots to familiarize the people about their rights under NREGA and the procedures to apply and obtain work.
AID works in several states to help people utilize NREGA so that the benefits reach the most marginalized, not only in the form of wages, but also quality projects implemented in the villages. For example, volunteers in Orissa have been performing social audits to bring to light the corruption in the local villages. They have performed street plays and workshops to raise awareness about their right to obtain work under the employment guarantee scheme and helped hundreds of villagers to apply for work.
Not only does misuse of NREGA deprive the marginalized, bit it also feeds into the corrupt channels and strengthens the exploitative social structures.
Somnath Mukherji, an engineer and AID Boston volunteer visited several Indian villages over the winter.
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