SCs & STs lose out on NREGA

Number of beneficiaries in these categories has been registering fall across nation in past two years

Either scheduled castes and tribes are being kept out of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in some way or are turning away from the flagship scheme, promising 100 days of ‘guaranteed’ wage labour in a year.

The number of SC/ST beneficiaries has been falling across the country, in a reversal of the rising trend seen in the earlier phase of MGNREGS. The slide between 2009 and 2012 is 46.5 per cent among SCs and 39.6 per cent in STs.

Concerned, a parliamentary standing committee on the welfare of SC/ST has asked if the law in question shouldn’t be amended to specifically target these classes. It had looked at data for 2009 and 2010; the falling trend has continued since.

It is true that the number of work days in MGNREGS across the country has fallen by 25 per cent in the period from April 2009 to March 2013. Yet, the fall in the share of SC/ST participation has been far bigger. And, the most striking of the declines has been in some of the poorest states — Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkand (see chart).

One big reason given is the scheme’s unpredictability and the delayed payment of wages. Says D C Sah of a grassroots organisation, Samarthan, which works with the programme in Madhya Pradesh: “The poorest of villagers in dryland agriculture prefer to go to the taluk or district headquarters for construction jobs or migrate for six to seven months towards Delhi and nearby areas. The delay in wages makes NREGS unreliable for them. So, short-term migration has become a fixed trend.”

Also, Sah says, the trend should be seen in the context of the decline in the total number of work days under the scheme. “Generally, work days are shrinking; the worst affected are SC/ST,” he says.

K C Gopal a former member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council formed to monitor MGNREGS, agrees there is a declining trend. However, he says, there is the example of Andhra Pradesh, which has been specifically targeting SC/ST groups for work under the scheme.

The data for the state shows SC/ST participation has remained robust, despite the general decline.