Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

24 SUMI KRISHNA
(EGS)(Datar, Chapter 7, this volume) and Madhya Pradesh’s Employment
Assurance Scheme (EAS)(Joshi, this volume). Joshi’s study shows clearly
that the provisions of even a ‘good scheme’ like the EAS in Madhya Pradesh
are ‘too inadequate to make a significant dent on the earnings and the livelihoods
of tribal women’ in the semi-arid and backward district of Jhabua.
As he points out, basic to all development schemes are ‘human rights’. The
significance of the newly enacted National Rural Employment Guarantee
(NREG) Act, 2005, is that it provides for the right to employment (see
Box. 1.1). However, while it lists a variety of different works, it does not
Box 1.1
The National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act, 2005
According to the Constitution of India, the state shall ‘direct its policy
towards securing that the citizen, men and women equally, have the
right to an adequate means of livelihood’ (Article 39 A). It also says
the state shall ‘make effective provision for securing the right to work’
(Article 41). Though the NREG Act is an attempt to fulfil these halfa-century
old constitutional provisions, it was passed by Parliament
only after a sustained campaign and lobbying with political parties.
In a period when public policy has been marked by the state withdrawing
from providing social security, the new Act significantly
recognises the state’s responsibility towards its poorest citizens. It
guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a year to all rural households
in 200 districts across the country. What this means is that any
adult in every rural (nuclear) household who is willing to do unskilled
‘manual’ labour at the minimum wage is entitled to employment on
local public works within 15 days of applying for work. If such work
is not offered, there is provision for unemployment allowances. The
Act gives women special priority, and at least a third of the labourers
have to be women. The Right to Food Campaign has described
the NREG Act as a ‘landmark in the history of social security legislation
in India—or indeed, anywhere in the world’, and says that it
‘promises to be a major tool in the struggle to secure the right to
food’. (For details see the website of the ‘Right to Food Campaign’,
http://www.righttofoodindia.org/rtowork/)