NAC says Employment Act in present form non-starter

Accusing the government of quietly pushing through a ‘‘flawed’’ Employment Guarantee Act (EGA), members of the National Advisory Council said it is a non-starter in its present diluted form. The ‘‘revised draft’’ of the EGA, prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development, empowers the Government to switch off any time, raising doubts of commitment, argued the advisory members, Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze. A view echoed by former prime minister V.P. Singh, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechuri and CPI national secretary D. Raja who assembled today to take stock of the revised draft of the EGA.

For one, there is no time-bound extension of the Act; no minimum wage set and with unemployment allowance restricted only to poor households, the Act is restrictive in that it is likley to be based on the highly unreliable BPL list, argued the critics. ‘‘It is the Congress who envisioned it and we hope the party is committed to it,’’ pointed out Yechuri.

Aaked if he thought the Bill was being ‘‘diluted’’ on the insistence of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Yechuri said: ‘‘We do not hold any particular person responsible.’’

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The critics said the revised Act lacks crucial provisions such as ensuring at least 40 pc of employed are women, ensuring the programmes are fully funded by the Centre and in the event where the failure to provide employment is due to the lack of devolution of requisite funds from the Centre, the payment of uneployment allowances should be reimbursed to the state government.

Raja, who met the PM today, said he was assured the Bill assuring jobs for at least 100 days a year will be introduced soon. In fact, V.P. Singh, Dreze and Roy had met the PM, Sonia Gandhi, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and CPI(M) Leader H.S. Surjeet to express concern at the watered down version of the revised draft.