NREGA AND CORRUPTION IN ASSAM The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a subject of lively

debate during the last two years or so. Unfortunately, the factual basis of this debate has been, so far, rather thin. But now beneficiaries under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Assam will get Rs 100 per day. The State Government has upgraded the NREGA wage rate from the present Rs 80 to Rs 100 per day. There are around 34 lakh job card holders in Assam. With the increase in daily wage, the spending on NREGA will be further enhanced by another Rs 136 crore. The state government claimed that NREGA scheme has been successful in the state during the year 2008-09. The NREGA evokes extreme reactions from supporters and opponents. When the scheme was launched in 200 districts in 2005, and later expanded to cover the entire country in 2008, its advocates hailed it as the beginning of a new era for rural India. NREGA provides for nine categories of work for integrated rural development including rural infrastructure, irrigation and water management. But only one type of work rural road-laying was created throughout Assam. Assam is an agrarian state where water conservation for crop production is critical but unfortunately Government did not pay any attention to conserve and optimize traditional water bodies in rural areas. For generating avenues of self employment in rural areas under the chief ministers special employment program of 2010-11, an amount of Rs 35.50 crore has been allocated to the State Institute of Rural Development (SITD) to assist around 12000 farmers, women weavers and unemployed youths, as said by our honorable chief minister Tarun Gogoi. [pic] But Assam has failed to ensure 100 days of rural employment under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Out of 31.85 lakh job card holders in the State, only 28 per cent found jobs in the 2009-10 fiscal that ended in March 31st. Seventy-eight per cent of those who got jobs could retain their work for only 30 days. For some 30 per cent, jobs lasted for 10 days or less. Only 7394 lucky households across Assams 2221 gaon panchayats got jobs for 100 days. The Act guaranteeing 100 days work should have provided over 31 crore person-days of work for more than 31 lakh registered households in the State. But only 4,164,083 person-days employment were created, and women accounted for only 21 per cent of working days. More surprisingly, only 0.64 per cent of the 31 lakh job card holders belonged to families living below the poverty line (BPL). If NREGA is meant for the poorest of the poor and only 0.64 per cent BPL persons got jobs, who are the real beneficiaries? A systemic corruption and lack of transparency on the part of state Congress government NREGA officials have made NREGA a major source of corruption in Assam. And it is very interesting that many government employees were illegally provided job cards under the NREGA and this was in gross violation of the norms. There is no doubt that the NREGA suffers from corruption. Of course, it is also important to ensure that the reported expenditure levels actually correspond to real work and wages. Earlier employment programmes have left a long trail of fake muster rolls and embezzled money. However, there is growing evidence that firm enforcement of NREGAs extensive transparency safeguards can go a long way in preventing corruption. For instance, a recent verification of muster rolls, found that 95 per cent of the wages paid according to the muster rolls had actually been received by the concerned labourers. This is a significant achievement, especially in contrast with the massive levels of fraud observed.

The systemic corruption cases in places like Karimganj and Barpeta have also showed that how officials have bypassed the Panchayati Raj institutions which were intended to play an important role in planning and executing this flagship program to respond to the local needs of the people. Specially, the issue of

fake job cards, job cards deposited in the custody of implementing officials or political party middlemen, delayed payment are being used for nefarious purpose of minting money illegally. Another corruption has highlighted that the official estimates of wages realized by workers are in fact inflated because the actual wages received by workers were much less than what is shown in the official documents. Cases of corruption, elusion in muster rolls, discrepancies in work days and payments have been reported. It would be inexperienced to think that the long history of fraud in public works programmes has already come to an end. But recent experience shows that it is possible to remove mass corruption from NREGA. This calls for strict implementation of the transparency safeguards, as well as firm action whenever corruption is exposed. In these simple steps lies the future of the Act, and of all those for whom it is a new ray of hope.