 "Chaudhary Birender Singh")
Chaudhary Birender Singh, Cabinet minister for rural development, panchayati raj, drinking water and sanitation, tells Archis Mohan how the Narendra Modi government has transformed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
Your ministry recently marked 10 years of the NREGA. What have been the achievements of the scheme?
Let me first correct you. We didn't exactly celebrate 10 years of the NREGA. What we celebrated was how our National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government transformed the NREGA in the last 18 months.
We have taken several steps to restore the confidence of beneficiaries in the NREGA. People have returned to the scheme with the same expectations that the Act had promised initially. We believe we can give the NREGA a new dimension in the coming years by using it extensively for the creation of quality assets in villages. We are working towards a convergence of the NREGA with departments of state governments and central schemes.
We plan to maintain a register of quality assets created through NREGA work and also keep photographs of these assets. This would ensure that the assets created are tangible and have long-term utility. As a tool to transform village life, we have decided to train 1.8 million NREGA workers in the next two to three years. Those who have completed 100 days of unskilled labour under the scheme will be eligible for skill development training. The effort is also to help them with the banking system and link them to other schemes launched by the prime minister. It should be visible to people in rural areas that the NREGA has helped them escape the rut.
How was this transformation you talk about accomplished?
The gist of the NREGA is to guarantee employment in rural areas. Any job seeker under NREGA should be provided with work within 15 days of his/her request. If not, the person has to be provided with an unemployment allowance. What isn't well known is that while the Centre provides funds for the NREGA, the responsibility of paying the unemployment allowance rests with state governments.
Second, the intent of the Act was noble, but its implementation in the last couple of years was not to the beneficiaries' satisfaction. They had started to feel cheated. They felt as if they were being made pawns in a larger game. This state of affairs continued for four to five years. The number of person days dipped to 40 days per year (out of a potential 100 days of work). Then there were the problems of delay in payment of even though the Act specifies that wages have to be paid within 15 days. The beneficiary felt as if the entire scheme was scam-ridden.
But didn't the United Progressive Alliance win a second term on the back of the NREGA?
The Act was rolled out in 2006, but only in a handful of districts. It was enforced countrywide in 2008, but its ambit and scope weren't evident even by 2009. It was mismanaged in subsequent years.
Its entire architecture was in a shambles when we took over in mid-2014. The previous government had left us with dues amounting to around Rs 6,000 crore. The situation started to change with our government's first full Budget in 2015-16. We released the first instalment of Rs 12,000 crore, primarily to ensure that payments were made to workers. This initiative had a huge impact; otherwise, people had lost hope of ever getting wages for NREGA work.
We studied the lacunae and sought greater transparency. To make the scheme useful for agriculture, we decided that 60 per cent of expenditure under the scheme should be for agriculture and allied activities. The second corrective measure was to clear pending dues; the third, to connect the system with electronic transfer of funds. We synchronised the job cards and muster rolls for prompt release of funds directly to bank accounts of beneficiaries. At places with no banking system, this goes to post office accounts. Currently, there is 94 per cent coverage of electronic transfers. This helped us cut delays in payments from 72 per cent to 55 per cent. The latest improvement is the expansion of the direct benefit transfer (DBT), introduced in Kerala on January 1. The results are satisfying, but we are monitoring the scheme closely. DBT will bring in more transparency and cover the entire country by April 1.
But it had seemed that your government wasn't convinced about the NREGA. There were statements to this effect by senior leaders. Has it been revived because of rural distress?
No, no. In the year ending March 31, the number of person days under NREGA will cross 2.2 billion. The number of person days has already crossed 1.63 billion. It will be an all-time high for the NREGA. Yes, person days dipped when we took over but that was the result of the previous government's indifference to the scheme. We have brought the scheme back on track.
We introduced 50 additional days of work in the drought-hit districts of nine states, including Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. We will train 10,000 barefoot technicians in the first phase to help with NREGA-related administrative work and even with Gram Sabha work, particularly after the acceptance of the 14th Finance Commission recommendations. Women's participation in the NREGA has increased to 57 per cent, the highest in the last three years. The pending liability has been brought down to Rs 4,000 crore.
What are the expectations of your ministry from the Union Budget?
We expect an emphasis on the social sector. If you look at the last two Budgets, larger allocations have been made for the social sector. The PM as well as the finance minister have indicated that the social sector and the agriculture sector will get priority. They are thinking about 70 per cent of our population.
The NREGA targets the unskilled in rural India. What about the skilled rural youth?
The ministry will launch the "Rurban" mission on February 21. The objective is to set up physical infrastructure and ensure connectivity between villages and the nearest urban clusters or townships. This will help skilled youth get exposure to opportunities. Economic activity near villages may also reduce migration to bigger towns and cities. For this to become a reality, infrastructure alone isn't sufficient. We need to build economic clusters of growth. We will be creating 300 clusters; in the first phase, 100 clusters will be created.
What are the plans to expedite the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)?
The funding position is comfortable with us. We have revised our earlier target to connect every habitation from 2022 to 2019. The PM is keen that connectivity, which the PMGSY accompalishes, should start yielding results. Connectivitiy will help people look for opportunities outside their villages.
What are the plans for the Housing for All scheme?
It was part of our manifesto that every family have a shelter by 2022. The scheme was divided into urban and rural housing. We have identified 29.5 million families in rural areas and 20 million in urban areas. The urban housing programme has taken off but the rural one has been delayed by a couple of months. Now, the PM has constituted a committee of 11 ministers that will meet on February 8 and within 10-15 days, prepare a report and send a Cabinet note.
The selection of beneficiaries is according to the Socio-Economic Caste Census data. There is no need for a fresh survey. But we may provide an appellate sort of opportunity for individuals, who could ask why they have been included in the list of benficiaries.
After the land Bill, there was a growing perception that this government is anti-farmer. Has this got anything to do with the recent rural push?
That is not true. Political parites who lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were looking to regain their place in the political arena and knew that farmers are the largest constituency. They spread this propaganda that all farmers would lose their land. But data will show you that only 12 per cent of land mass is under habitation - villages, cities and industries. If you look at the next 30 years from 2015 to 2045, only four per cent would be added to this. So, 16 per cent of land will be sufficient for the next three to four decades for purposes other than agriculture. This was only a political stunt. If we have to progress as a nation we need to maintain balance between industry and agriculture.
