 "Mid-day meal")
Adding some and modifying some others is how the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is planning to go about its welfare programmes in the coming days. While the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) is likely to be extended to some private schools, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) may see an overhaul.
There are plans to reform the public distribution system (PDS) and convert the bulk of food subsidies to direct benefit transfer (DBT). A recent report based on the work of the task force on eliminating poverty gives a glimpse of the shape the government's welfare programme is likely to take. The task force was constituted by the NITI Aayog in March, 2015. The report suggests different ways to eliminate poverty and argues that accelerated growth is the most suitable medicine to reduce incidence of poverty.
Other than suggesting ways to push growth, the paper offers suggestions to make existing anti-poverty programmes more effective. On national food security programme, the task force offers two options. The first option involves use of technology to stop leakage in the PDS. With the adoption of biometric authentication system, multiple and ghost ration cards can be eliminated. "In addition, modern technology can be employed to monitor the movement of grains from the Food Corporation of India's (FCI) warehouses to the PDS shops to eliminate the leakage in transit," the task force suggests.
The second option is more radical and advocates getting rid of procurement and distribution system. It says: "The beneficiary may be allowed to choose between cash transfer equivalent to the current implicit subsidy and continued subsidised purchases. As long as beneficiaries have access to banking services, they are likely to choose cash as the option. This would free them to purchase grain at market prices from the PDS shop or private traders and create healthy competition, thereby promoting efficiency." This option may impact farmers who are dependent on state procurement using minimum support price.
Other than focusing on asset creation, the task force advocates using MNREGA workers for agriculture purposes also. It says "during the peak period of agricultural season, farmers experience acute shortages of labour. It would be worthwhile to consider a reform to address this shortage such that farmers are allowed to hire MGNREGA workers with them paying the bulk of the wage (for example, 75 per cent) and MGNREGA covering the remainder."
The task force also wants some flexibility in 60:40 ratio. Currently, of the total cost of MNREGA project, 60 per cent of the allocation should go to pay wages and 40 per cent for procurement of materials. The task force argues that "restricting the expenditure on material strictly below 40 per cent can preclude the consideration of some good durable projects such as construction of school or hospital building. The restriction can be particularly limiting in desert or hilly regions where high transport costs make materials very expensive. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that while the wage component is covered by the central government, the materials component is covered by the state."
If recommendation of the task force is anything to go by, Housing for All by 2022 is going to be the government's flagship programme. As per the provisions of the scheme, 30 million pucca houses in rural areas and 20 million in urban areas are to be constructed by 2022. The report says "if successfully implemented, the mission Housing for All will be a game changer in many ways."
Other than direct benefits, the scheme is likely to result in "creating more, and much needed decent jobs in Indian cities." It advocates using prefabricated material to speed up execution of the project.
The current thinking in the government is to convert most of the welfare programmes from in-kind transfer to DBT. The task force forcefully makes the case for such a move. It says that "Jan-Dhan Yojana, Aadhar and mobile-cum-banking correspondent initiatives together provide a powerful platform to convert most of the existing transfers and subsidies into DBT. With the Aadhar account permitting aggregation of the information, this would give the government an excellent database to assess the total volume of benefits accruing to each household."
Other than making a case for tweaking poverty alleviation programmes to make them more effective, the task force also suggests ways to improve agriculture productivity and boost jobs in the manufacturing sector. For the agriculture sector, it advocates, among others, tenancy reforms and development of land leasing market. "The NITI Aayog is currently working on a Model Land Leasing Act in close consultation with states," the paper says.
