EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE BILL PASSED, WHAT NEXT?
W.R. Varada Rajan
 
The Parliament of India had given its nod to the Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, with both  the     houses adopting the same. The Standing Committee of the Ministry of Rural Development, which considered the Bill in depth, had made several useful recommendations for making the provisions of the Bill more meaningful. The Left parties intervened to pressurise the UPA government to fine-tune the provisions in the Bill to address the concerns of the rural poor, who are victims of the worst agrarian crisis and distress witnessed in the country. The claim of this being a "historic" Bill may be a bit exaggerated but its passage is nonetheless a landmark event, given the backdrop of the class bias - tilted towards the rich and affluent - in the budgetary and legislative policy regime witnessed in Parliament, particularly in the port-liberalisation era. 
 
The passage of the Bill is only the first - perhaps halting - step in extending employment guarantee to the unemployed youth of the country. The Bill falls short of the expectations in several respects. It addresses the concerns of only the rural households, while the commitment in the National Common Minimum Programme was to "provide a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment … for at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middle class household". 
 
The Standing Committee had recommended: "universal application and self targeting which means whosoever offers himself/herself for work at the prescribed wages is to be provided guaranteed employment under the provisions of the Bill". But, the amended Bill extends guaranteed employment for 100 days only to one person in every rural households. But, as against the Standing Committee recommendation of minimum wages at the rate of 75 per cent of the national floor level minimum wages (of Rs. 66 per day), which works out to only Rs. 49, the Bill now provides Rs.60, which again marks a compromise. Again, the amended Bill now promises extension of coverage throughout the country in the next five years, whereas the original Bill had dropped the provision of time-bound extension to the whole of rural India. Similarly, the provisions for reserving one-third of the jobs to women and increasing the number of districts to be covered at the initial phase from 150 to 200 are, no doubt, welcome. The Finance Ministry had committed itself to allocation of funds required for implementation of the legislation and for timely placement thereof with the State governments. 
 
These positive turn-arounds have been made possible only because the trade unions, mass organisations and the democratic movement - particularly the Left forces - mounted intense pressure on the UPA government. 
 
But the moot question is whether the legislation will really take off at the ground level? The answer lies in the capacity of the trade unions and mass organisations to take the initiative to get the provisions of the law implemented without dilutions and free from the corruption that has been the bane of all poverty alleviation programmes in the country so far. As the Panchayati Raj Institutions have been assigned a pivotal role - and the State governments are also expected to chip in their efforts - in implementation of the employment guarantee schemes under the law, the pressure will have to be mounted at the State and Panchayat levels. 
 
The trade union movement must remind itself that this is only a small relief. What is needed is a directional change in the economic policies, with emphasis on durable employment generation. Though the first budget of the UPA government had forecast that "Investment and growth will create new job opportunities for our young men and women", this is far from maturing into a reality. It was noted that the employment guarantee legislation was aimed at addressing the "need to ensure that unemployment does not take a heavy toll on the poor people". 
 
The Standing Committee Report had also urged the Government "to bring forward a suitable legislation for urban areas also". Trade Union Campaign and struggle will have to be directed to address these tasks.