People's Democracy

EGA: Necessary Features

Following is the statement adopted by the convention:

THE crisis of livelihoods in large parts of rural India is a cause for extreme concern. A crucial step that addresses this crisis is an Employment Guarantee Act (EGA), as promised by the National Common Minimum Programme, with the requisite devolution of funds to state governments. Towards this, the ministry of rural development has prepared a Draft EGA. The provisions of this Draft should be seen in light of the following essential requirements:

1. Entitlement: Any rural adult who is willing to do casual manual work at the statutory minimum wage should be entitled to employment within 15 days, for as many days as he/she has applied.  Workers should be paid within seven days of the week when work has been done, in front of the community, and equal wages should be paid to men and women. Work should be provided within the Block, with travel allowances to be paid beyond 5 kilometres. If work is not provided within 15 days, the applicant should be entitled to an unemployment allowance equal to at least half of the statutory minimum wage. Labourers employed under the Act should be entitled to basic worksite facilities such as clean drinking water, emergency health care, child-minding, and compensation in the event of accident or death.

2. Women’s entitlements: The Act should safeguard the interests of women and give full attention to their concerns with regard to availability, location, type and organisation of work.  In the unfortunate event where the employment guarantee is restricted to a specified number of days per household (as proposed in the Common Minimum Programme), it should be ensured that at least 40 per cent of workers employed in a particular Block are women, so that women are not pushed disproportionately on to the unemployment allowance or out of the scheme.

3. Nature of works: All works undertaken under the Act should be productive in the broad sense that they contribute directly or indirectly to the increase of production, the creation of durable assets, the provision of essential public services, the preservation of the environment, or the improvement of the quality of life.

4. Contractors: Contractors should not be used by gram panchayats. If the use of contractors by block officers is permitted at all, it should be restricted to specific types of work and subject to case-by-case permission. In all cases where contractors are used, the programme officer should arrange for wages to be paid directly to the workers within seven days of the week when work has been done, in front of the community.

5. Financing: The Act should not impose any additional financial burden on the state governments. The Employment Guarantee Programme should be fully financed by the centre, and all expenditure for the implementation of the scheme should be met by the central government through a Central Employment Guarantee Fund. The central government should devolve finances to the State’s Employment Guarantee Fund in an account specified for this and only this particular purpose.

6. Wage, Material and Administrative Costs: The wage contribution of the centre must extend at least to a national norm initially fixed at no less than Rs 66 per day, and indexed to the All India CPI-AL for future revision. Additionally, the centre should finance material costs in the ratio of 70:30 labour: material. When there is a delay in the devolution of funds to the state government from the Central Fund, the central government must reimburse the state government for the associated unemployment allowance payments. To meet the administrative costs of the programme, the funds devolved by the centre to each state should include an additional component amounting to 5 per cent of the total spending on wages and materials.

7. Decentralised planning, Transparency and Accountability: At least half the funds under the programme should be devolved to the gram panchayats. Village-level works should be planned and executed by gram panchayats, based on the recommendations of the gram sabha. Panchayats should ensure timely social audits of all the works. There should be detailed provisions for transparency and accountability at all levels, including convenient availability of all records to the public, regular social audits by the gram sabhas, payment of wages in front of the community, public display of muster rolls, regular maintenance of job cards, and so on.

8. Monitoring and redressal: The Employment Guarantee Programme should be monitored at the centre by a Central Employment Guarantee Council, and by State Employment Guarantee Councils at the state level. Each state should have an ombudsman or a quasi-legal body for redressal that can direct government functionaries to investigate and report all complaints on its behalf. The Act should explicitly provide for penalties against responsible officers if they do not perform their duty.

9. Scope and time frame: The Act should come into force immediately in at least one third of the districts, and be extended to the whole of India within three years. If the scope of the Act is initially restricted to rural areas, similar legislation for urban areas should be introduced within one year.

10. Protection to farmers: The interests of farmers should be protected in the present context of agrarian crisis.  Given that the implementation of the Act is likely to exert an upward pressure on agricultural wages, these wage increases should be taken into account while setting the minimum support prices of agricultural commodities, so that farmers do not suffer further losses.