In the article “Is NREGS stealing labour?” (June 20) Ajit Ranade claims the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is taking away labour from even work that requires high skills like diamond polishing. It is, however, hard to imagine how the NREGS can lead to a shortage of workers in any sector. One of the core goals of the scheme is to provide local employment to unskilled labour in rural areas at the minimum agricultural worker’s wage rates for a maximum of 100 days per household. The actual all-India average of the number of days work provided per job card in FY 2010-11 is 15 days. With an average of three adults (of 18 years and above) per rural family, this works out to a minuscule five days of NREGS work per head per 365 days.
If, however, Ranade’s claim is true then this only shows how badly our industry has been underpaying and exploiting India’s labourers — skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled. Indeed, another objective of the NREGS is to make employment the right of labourers to empower them. Sadly, in almost all parts of India this goal is yet to be realised because of bureaucracy.
The only tweaking that the NREGS needs is fuller implementation in its true spirit. If this does lead to higher wages for the downtrodden and the hungry, should it not be welcomed by all of us?
Alok Sarkar, Kolkata
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