Guarantee this

Cheered by her party colleagues, Sonia Gandhi 8212; in support of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill NRGEB 8212; said that her party could not sit by and hope that economic reforms alone would generate adequate employment opportunities for rural India, and thus the need for the EGA. An employment guarantee programme is best understood as an anti-poverty programme that seeks to provide a source of livelihood to those on the margins left out of the growth process of the market economy. The hard physical labour entailed results in only the poorest of the poor coming forward to do such work.

NRGEB has the potential, therefore, of becoming the best anti-poverty programme India has ever tried. Out of the total tax payer money spent by the government, a higher proportion can reach the targeted 8212; the poor 8212; than is the case with a myriad subsidy programmes that exist at present. If the EGA works well, it should be possible to shut down the PDS through which money transferred to the poor, out of each rupee spent, is minuscule. If the NRGEB works well, it should also be possible to close down subsidy programmes for kerosene, LPG and fertilisers, where the benefits reach the rich in far greater proportion than they reach the poor.

But this means that, one, the EGA has to be done properly. And, two, that it is not just another populist scheme, but is meant to be the main channel through which the government has chosen to address poverty. The enormous sums of money involved can be justified only if all subsidies and funds allocated to other anti-poverty schemes are diverted to this scheme. And only if the EGA is strictly, efficiently and honestly implemented. The cynicism of those who believe it will become a scam will have to be disproved by the highest standards of governance and not merely by well-meaning idealism. It may not be enough to rely on the Right to Information Act to get EGA right. Governments need to be extremely alert, appoint independent monitoring agencies, use the media and the public, and take stringent action against corrupt officers, if it is to be effective as an anti-poverty programme.