Job scheme discriminates against women   

The UPA government's flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is heavily slanted against women. Participation of women in a scheme supposed to provide 100 days of employment in manual labour to every rural household has been found to be negligible. A study conducted across 21 districts by the NGO PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) has found that only 1.01 per cent women in 24 Parganas South in West Bengal, 3.9 per cent in Simour in Himachal Pradesh, 2.57 per cent in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh and 13 per cent in Madhubani in Bihar had enrolled in this scheme.  Numbers of women are so low that in the five districts where the survey was conducted in both UP and Jharkhand, only 3,000 women had been enlisted in the muster rolls. In all, 3.91 per cent women in a 100 per cent literate state like Himachal Pradesh had enrolled for NREGA, while enrolment of women in Bihar was 13 per cent. The survey covered 14 states, including Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Kerala, Orissa, Rajasthan, West Bengal , UP and Jharkhand. Admitting NREGA is not women-friendly, Manoj Rai, national coordinator, PRIA, says, “NREGA looks at household participation and in our villages it is the male who is seen to head households. This is a social barrier which has still to be overcome.”  

Mr. Rai also felt that contractors preferred not to employ women because they were considered “unsuitable” for manual labour unless they agreed to accept lower salaries. Other reasons for low participation of women include lack of crèche facilities and lack of awareness. Single women find it next to impossible to enlist in this scheme because the contractors prefer to employ groups of men belonging to the same family. NREGA at present covers 330 districts in the country with an annual outlay of Rs 12,000 crores. This works out to each district receiving Rs 40 crores to boost employment between 2006 and 2007. Only two days ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced, at the behest of Mr Rahul Gandhi that the scheme was being extended to the remaining 274 districts with an additional outlay of Rs 10,000 crores.  What is ironical is that NREGA is being largely implemented by gram panchayats, which have 33 per cent reservation for women members. PRIA's survey showed that while 81 per cent of the total projects sanctioned under NREGA are being implemented by gram panchayats, “this additional responsibility has not been matched by devolution of functions or by adequate funds. As a result, they are under tremendous pressure.”  In some districts, individual woman panchayats have taken the initiative to create greater awareness about NREGA amongst the village women. One such example is in Karuli district in Rajasthan, where panchayat member Shakuntala has been motivating women. This has had an impact and women’s participation went up by four per cent in the last few months. The survey also highlighted how between 2006 and 2007 only six per cent of households registered under NREGA were given 100 days of employment. Other findings included that the majority of job applicants in the 530 villages that were surveyed were not given jobs within the prescribed 15 day timeframe. They did not receive any unemployment allowance.  

Almost half the surveyed households also complained that the minimum wages being paid to them were less than what had been proscribed to them. This was causing a great deal of disillusionment with the scheme and so many workers complained that given an option, they would not like to work under it.  (Source:  Asian Age, October 3, 2007)