Sanjay Dixit is a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, a statutory body set up under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). He was initially chosen by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi to head an NREGA cell in Uttar Pradesh where he has become an official whistleblower of sorts, unearthing several instances of fund diversion in many districts. He talks about the malaise in the five-year-old law that entitles rural households to 100 days of wage employment. Excerpts from an interview with Sreelatha Menon:
There has been a fall in the number of workdays under the NREGA’s 100-day work scheme in its fifth year. At the same time, the government has asked for a 60 per cent increase in funding. In my view, it is better that the scheme has less money. In Uttar Pradesh only two per cent of job card holders were given 100 days of work this year. The entire process of releasing funds to states should be reviewed first before the funding is increased.
You have unearthed many scams in the NREGA in Uttar Pradesh. What is at the root of this diversion of money which you don’t see on this scale in many other centrally-sponsored schemes? If the panchayat raj institutions are strengthened, 80 per cent of corruption will disappear. Both state governments and the bureaucracy are colluding to prevent such institutions from taking control. They don’t want decentralisation because they will lose their powers.
There are many things in the NREGA about which the panchayati raj institutions are deliberately kept in the dark. The contingency fund, for instance, accounts for a major part of the amount transferred. This is meant for the gram panchayat, but these officials don’t know this. Bureaucrats get the signatures of panchayat functionaries and then appropriate that money.
So there is a lot of looting going on. The village pradhan who is painted as a the villain of the piece is getting the smallest share. The rest is shared among the officialdom.
What about the scams you unearthed in Uttar Pradesh? Didn’t officials get punished? Four block development officers and a chief development officer (CDO) were suspended last year. But I feel small officers are being made scapegoats and the bigger ones escape.
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What is the latest trend in fund diversion in the NREGA? Proxy centralised purchases. The gram panchayat’s assent is taken for purchases of various things in the name of the NREGA, like toys for crèches and so on. And huge diversions have come to light.
What is the mood among the people in villages about the NREGA? There is frustration, which is dangerous. The pradhan gets a house and a car while the poor villager does not even get a day’s work. This can be counterproductive for the government. I have been telling the ministry and the party that it is high time the law was amended to stop this process of denial.
What can be done to stop this diversion? The transparency and accountability section in the NREGA should be strengthened if the benefit is to go to workers and gram panchayats. Section 27(2) says if there is a prima facie case of embezzlement and the state does not act, then the Centre can intervene and stop the flow of funds. I feel if the central funding is 80 per cent or above as in the case of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and NREGA, then the Centre should not only stop the flow of funds but act against guilty officials as the law says.
So why is the Centre not acting? The Centre wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation six months ago but the law needs to be amended further and this needs to be cleared by the law ministry. It would be difficult for the Centre to act because India has a federal structure and the Centre cannot do anything without the states’ permission.
But the bureaucrats are from a central service. So why can’t the Centre act against them? Precisely. I have been saying the same thing.
What about the kind of work that is being undertaken? If we don’t increase the scope of work then the scheme will be a wasted opportunity. I am not asking for convergence, which the activists have opposed. I am not asking for diluting the basic principle of providing work. But I feel that the cottage industry, the hundreds of thousands of weavers, and other skilled artisans who are moving to unskilled work owing to a dearth of income should be made part of the scheme by including their work in it.
Activists like Jean Drèze and Aruna Roy have said the NREGA should be kept for those who are strictly out of work and not taken to those who already work in, say, an anganwadi. That would be like subsidising the government using workers’ money. These activists are from another planet. If they came to Uttar Pradesh they would be driven out. I am not in favour of convergence either. But instead of promoting an unskilled worker, the funds could boost opportunities for skilled workers.
Your party has been taking credit for the scheme without doing much for it. For instance, you have an NREGA unit in Uttar Pradesh that has been unearthing scams. So why didn’t the party deploy its cadres in other states to make the scheme work and spread awareness? The Congress is now doing precisely this. Sonia Gandhi had said at the Burari meet that monitoring units for the NREGA on the pattern of our unit in Uttar Pradesh will now come up in all states.
The Centre recently increased wages by linking them to the consumer price index but has kept them independent of minimum wages. Does that not go against labour laws? Listen, politics is ugly in this country. If the wages were linked to minimum wages, then the states will start increasing their minimum wages and the Centre would be helpless. I wrote to Sonia Gandhi saying that she had wrongly advised the prime minister and had warned against linking it to minimum wages. The increase in wages, meanwhile, is substantial. But I would say keep it at even Rs 80 but keep it leakage-free. What is the point of raising wages to Rs 120 and giving poor people neither work nor wages in full?
Is there a solution for making the basic entitlement of 100 days work to people a reality then? I feel if any panchayat does not give jobs to 75 per cent of job card holders then it should be punishable. That is the only way people will get some work. In Uttar Pradesh, 60 per cent of the funds are yet to be used, though only two months are left. I fear that adjustments are bound to be made on a big scale there.
You were hand-picked by Rahul Gandhi to head this NREGA unit. What were your experiences before that? I am a politician’s son and an activist but I found that when I tried to stop diversions in the NREGA as an activist, no one listened to me. The support of the party has made my work effective.
Whistleblowers are facing death threats. In fact, an activist was assaulted recently in Uttar Pradesh in Sonebhadra. Does that scare you? Rural Development Secretary B K Sinha wrote to the home secretary last year seeking security for me. I was not too keen then. But now after this incident I have also written seeking security. After all, I have troubled a lot of people.