My colleague Adinarayana Raju reports from the field that large scale farmers are putting pressure on local governments to shut down NREGA worksites during peak harvest season because of the program’s upward pressure on local wages. After a recent trip of my own to NREGA worksites in Karimnagar, AP I don't find this that surprising. In Karimnagar, workers told us that the going daily wage rate for farm labour has more than doubled (from around 35-40 rs a day to 80 rs a day) since the implementation of the program.
In AP, the farmers’ tactics appear to have worked. Eenadu reports (in Telugu) that the AP ministry of rural development has announced that it plans to come up with a NREGA “calendar” (read scheduled work stoppage periods) in the near future.
The political maneuvering of the large farmers seems leaves me slightly uneasy and it 's a bit of a bummer that AP is subtly rolling back NREGA just as it appears to be making an impact yet at the end of the day this might not be such a bad thing. Too much distortion in the local labour markets would do no one any good in the long run.
3 comments:
It emerged in my recent interaction with some medium farmers in West and East Godavari districts of AP that NREGA has indeed led to scarcity of labor, in ways that aren't always desirable.
Some argued that the supervision of public works under NREGA is relatively lax, therefore, the labor get assured and better wages by doing less work. Naturally, they prefer work under NREGA than the work in Farmer fields for similar or marginally better wages and involving greater work with accountability.
They contend that Government schemes for the socially disadvantaged, have gradually improved their education levels leading to labor shortages over a period of time, and NREGA has further exacerbated the situation for them.
Viewed in this context, AP Govt's recent idea of a NREGA Calender is not a bad thing, and certainly does not amount to rolling back or diluting the scheme.
I am little surprised at this comment. While I can agree that artificial increase in wage rate can be a disturbing phenomena; and that the big farmers will use their political clout to try and reverse as much as possible the gains from NREGA to the poor but I am a little stumped at the logic of NREGA leading to scarcity of labour in the following two undesirable ways:
1. The labourers are not working "hard enough" in the big farmers words- or is it that they are not exploited enough?
2. Improved education levels are leading to labour shortages- Are we trying to argue that there should be remedial measures to neutralize the positive effects of government programs?
To clarify on the earlier post,
1. The Farmers implied that implementation of public works under NREGA is poor (in their opinion), and the laborers get paid for less effort, because there is a prevalent feeling that since it is Government money, idling on the job is often overlooked. So, once he gets paid Rs 120/- for what they termed as 2 hours of work, he is less inclined to take up farm operations (like paddy sowing)even at marginally higher wages. No, I don't think Laborers are being exploited before NREGA came along.
2. This point is to support the argument that NREGA is adding to the growing scarcity of Farm labour. These Farmers cannot sell their produce outside their local area (possibly at remunerative prices) due to Government regulations, in the name of food security. So they are naturally constrained by the Government policies towards them.
It is not my argument that remedial measures are needed for positive effects of Governmental programs.
There is a new trend towards the use of paddy transplanters to overcome the scarcity of labor in the region. I think we need to also consider long term implications of NREGA on Farmer-Laborer relations than merely looking at it as a social empowerment scheme.
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