Don146;t do a bad job

Why the Centre should want to mess with one of its more promising social welfare initiatives is a mystery. The Union government8217;s decision to fix a uniform wage of Rs 60 for projects under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act NREGA 8212; instead of allowing state governments to lay down the rate as it had decided to do earlier 8212; could seriously undermine both the popularity of this important effort and the commitment of state governments to see it through. States would, understandably, be less enthusiastic about an intervention that would raise their own financial liabilities.

Nobody says that the NREGA comes cheap. In fact, much of the early debate over the wisdom of instituting it was precisely because of the large outlays it implied. But now that it has taken off to enthusiastic response, in a manner that is from all accounts fairly transparent and apparently more free from corruption than earlier initiatives of its kind, we would advise the Union government not to mess with it at this stage and allow the state governments to set the wage. The Centre should, instead, focus on ensuring that EGA projects continue to function well by mobilising the necessary staff. A regular audit on its functioning would help greatly. Given the huge costs entailed, the country just cannot afford failures like shoddy coordination, poor regulation and fuzzy outcomes.

Patterns of employment are changing rapidly in the countryside. In the seventies, only a sixth of the workforce was involved in non-agricultural activities. Today, it is a totally different reality. At least one-quarter of the rural workforce is now employed in the non-agricultural sector. This is where projects under the NREGA come in, because they expand employment opportunities in the regions that need them most. The rush to sign up for the NREGA jobs indicates that the intervention is meeting a felt need. So let8217;s not now make a bad job out of it.