Letters: Working troubles

Apropos Shubhashis Gangopadhyay’s article “Don’t blame MGNREGA” (November 26), no economy can grow by handing out doles and freebies. Creating gainful employment is the only sure way to eradicate poverty; any other measure will only interfere with the country’s economic cycle. In an attempt to counter the corruption argument against the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the author cleverly discusses only one facet, that is, “under-payments” to labourers. He omits the more disturbing aspect — the utility and verification of the work done. The reluctance of agencies implementing the scheme to subject themselves to audits is a clear indication that either no work is done (except on paper) or it is unproductive. Hence, money spent under the scheme is a wasteful expenditure that only adds to inflationary pressures. The author’s argument about top executives’ wages and bonuses is equally specious because labour costs are the major part of any corporation’s wage-bill, with top management’s salary forming only a minuscule part. The latter, in any case, does not affect profitability the way artificially jacked-up labour costs do. Besides, it is facile to compare the wage patterns of unskilled or semi-skilled manual workers with those who apply sophisticated technical and managerial skills, assume risk and bear responsibilities for the fortunes of a big corporate house.

Ajay Tyagi, Mumbai

II

Shubhashis Gangopadhyay has missed the point that against the permitted 100 days of work per household per financial year, the actual work generated under MGNREGA in FY 2010-11 for all of India was 221 crore person-days against 18.65 crore registered households. If we assume an average of three adult workmen a household, this works out to a minuscule 6.2 days of work per rural worker in a 365-day year. Should we not look elsewhere for the real cause of wage inflation in rural India?

Alok Sarkar, Kolkata