On 21 December 2004, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, 2004, the widely publicised agenda of the United Progressive Alliance government was tabled in Parliament. The Bill, according to Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, would go a long way in benefiting poor families in rural areas. The Bill promises a minimum of 100 days of employment to every poor household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

 

Parallel to the Parliament session, at the Parliament Street, thousands of people gathered to protest against the shortfalls in the Bill and demanded a full-fledged Employment Guarantee Act. The people and banners came from all over the country, with more than a lakh signature over the banners demanding an effective employment guarantee.

 

As the Bill was tabled in Parliament, speaker after speaker in Parliament Street denounced it as a travesty of the original scheme. The initial draft was diluted to the extent of being fundamentally at odds with the basic principles of an employment guarantee, aside from violating the promises made in the Common Minimum Programme, they said.

 

Many speakers welcomed the Act but pointed out at its drawbacks. “We welcome the tabling of the Bill, because it extremely important that the question of employment guarantee is given a legal frame work,” said Suneet Chopra of All India Agricultural Workers Union. “But there are major lacunae because it limits to a target population where as more than 80 crore people in India live below the poverty line.”

According to Swami Agnivesh of Bandhua Mukti Morcha, “It is a very important step taken by the government in the 57 years of independent India for the poorest of the poor. There are many things, which have been left out, and could be added later. First and foremost thing is passing the Bill,” he said. “This will help us organise the unorganised because it is for the first time they are getting an employment guarantee.”

The participants were from more than 100 different organisations committed to the right to work, which came together under the banner of the People’s Action for the Employment Guarantee Act. Some of the major flaws in the Bill pointed out were:

1. The “employment guarantee schemes” to be created under the Act are targeted at “poor households” (read BPL households). This is contrary to the fundamental principle of universal entitlement and self-selection – all the more so as the BPL list is highly unreliable.

 

2. The Act is to come into force “in such areas and for such periods” as may be notified by the Central Government. This makes it possible for the government to “switch off” the employment guarantee at any time.

 

3. There is no provision in NREGB 2004 for time-bound extension to the whole of rural India.

 

4. The NREGB 2004 does not guarantee payment of statutory minimum wages. It empowers the Central Government to notify different wages in different areas, for the purpose of the employment guarantee schemes created under the Act.

 

The other main speakers included, Sehba Farooqi (National Federation of Indian Women), Jayati Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Madhuri Krishnaswamy (Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan), Surendra Mohan (veteran socialist), Hanan Mollah (Member of Parliament), Kuldip Nayyar (eminent journalist), Pramila Pandey (All India Democratic Women’s Association), Vinod Raina (Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti), Aruna Roy (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan), among others.