Several commentators and opposition leaders have sought to trivialize the reform undertaken for the rural employment guarantee scheme as a mere attempt to change the name and dispense with Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the title. This is of course as absurd as it can get. No government, specially not one which sees itself as pursuing the Mahatma’s principal goal of eliminating poverty from our midst, could contemplate such a change in the nomenclature.
It is also rather futile to focus the debate on a change in the name and not dwell on the substance of the change that is embedded in the Act which has introduced the Vikasit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB- G RAM G Act). In this piece we intend to address some of the fears, somewhat misplaced, about VB- G RAM G. First, the fear that by raising the share of the State governments to 40 per cent, the VB-G RAM G scheme will face fiscal constraints as States will not be able to contribute their share of the expenses. It should be noted that the Himalayan and North Eastern states (13 in all) will still receive 90 per cent of the total outlays from the Central Government.
A higher share of the remaining States will ensure that state governments, now with skin in the game, will try harder to ensure a proper implementation of VB- G RAM G and eliminate the leakages that had come to characterize the earlier version. This attempt at making States an almost equal partner in the matter of providing a viable social security net to their own people is completely in sync with the federal nature of our polity. Second, the switch from a demand driven to a nominated expenditure format has evoked the criticism from the ‘bleeding heart group of civil society activists’ who argue that this will not allow VB-G RAM G to meet the needs of the rural unemployed.
They forget that the guarantee doesn’t get affected merely by adopting a different fund-sharing pattern, the worker’s right to demand employment remains intact, and if employment is not provided within 15 days, unemployment allowance needs to be paid. Third, an outlay for each state based on an in-depth enquiry of their actual needs, will ensure that State governments are fully aware of the annual outlay and can hence plan the implementation of VB-G RAM G more effectively to better tackle the employment loss in lean months. The provision for State governments to pause the implementation of VB-G RAM G for 60 days in a year to coincide with the peak agriculture seasons of sowing and harvesting is a well-considered one.
It will help alleviate labour shortages that heavily constrain the farmers’ability to complete necessary farm operations in time during the peak season. Fourth, the focus on four critical infrastructure and climate related projects is most welcome. India is a severely water stressed country with 4 per cent share of global fresh water availability and 16 per cent of the world population. Our per capita water availability has been declining rather sharply over the past decades. Therefore, the focus on rainwater harvesting, dredging of ponds and reservoirs to increase their water holding capacities and all water conservation projects will address an acute emerging problem.
In fact, given the urgency and severity of the water problem, it could be eminently useful for VB-G RAM G to focus almost exclusively on water conservation and its rational utilization for the next few years. It will yield handsome and accountable returns. Fifth, linking projects undertaken under VB- G RAM G to National Rural Infrastructure Stack and to PM Gati Shakti and making these a part of the Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans in conjunction with its focus on four key sectors, will ensure more bang for the buck. The planning envisaged in the new Act is decentralised, participatory and bottom-up.
Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans will be prepared by Gram Panchayats through Gram Sabha themselves. The National Rural Infrastructure Stack is simply an aggregation of the works planned and taken up under the Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans. It will ensure that infrastructure projects are part of the decentralized development plans prepared by Gram Panchayats on the one hand and converge with the national level effort to improve logistics infrastructure and lower overall costs for not only the agriculture sector but the overall economy. Improvements in rural infrastructure and linking it to the logistics network will facilitate labour mobility and transfer of goods and services that will directly benefit the rural workforce and farmers.
Sixth, while appreciable progress has been made in preventing leakages, with 99.94 per cent payments already digital in 2024-25, the attempt to plug all possible leakages and acts of commission and omission is indeed welcome. These efforts include appointment of Steering Oversight Committees at Central and State levels; a Program officer for regular monitoring of the projects’ implementation; AI based fraud detection system; Enhanced monitoring role of the Panchayats; GPS for mobile-based monitoring; and weekly public disclosures. The most important improvement, in my view, is the provision of stronger Social audits twice a year. This might be the key to eliminating the remaining weaknesses, which had plagued MNREGA’s implementation.
Twenty years of operational experience (MNREGA was introduced in 2005) have generated several operational lessons. It would be a dereliction of public policy if these lessons were not incorporated for aligning VB- G RAM G, which basically provides a social security net, with radically changed ground realities of rural India. By locating VB- G RAM G firmly within the digital framework and establishing unambiguous and clearly defined regular monitoring mechanisms, we can expect that fake rolls, exaggerated employment claims, payment pendency and leakages will be minimized and eventually eliminated.
That will help make VB-G RAM G the social security net which will provide succor to people during times of distress and unforeseen loss of employment. While the number of days for which VB-G RAM G employment can be availed has been extended to 125 days in a year, the policy effort will be more productively directed to ensure that our workforce is increasingly formalized and engaged in high productivity and high wage employment that will ensure a Viksit Bharat@100.
(The writer is Chairman, Pahlé India Foundation, and former Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog)