If this is the flagship…

‘The object is to guarantee 100 days of employment in a year to one able-bodied person in every poor household,’ Chidambram told the cheering MPs during his Budget speech for 2004/05 as he explained the Government’s commitment to the poor. So, what was he going to do? Pending legislation, the Food for Work Programme is being extended to 150 districts.

And where is the money to come from? Chidambram’s solution was one that has become the hallmark of this Government: ‘Allocations under different schemes will be pulled together to support the Food for Work Programme,’ he declared. There are substantial funds totaling over Rs. 6,000 crore under SGRY, SGSY, SJSRY, REGP and PMRY.’ A typical stratagem: if there is one big programme, split it into five and announce five path-breaking, closer-to-the people initiatives; if there are five programmes, club them, and announce one historic initiative! In either event, rename them – giving them one of the two permissible names.

In the 2005/06 Budget, while announcing that he was increasing the allocation for this programme to Rs. 11,000 crore, Chidambram correctly noted that there were two components to the allocation – a cash component and a food component.

By the 2006/07, the commitment had got altered, a word got slipped in: while the original commitment was to ‘guarantee 100 days of employment in a year to one able-bodied person in every poor household,’ the commitment now became to guarantee 100 days of employment in a year to one able-bodied person in every rural household. As for allocation, Chidambram said, ‘In the current year, under a clutch of schemes including the Food For Work programme, a sum of Rs. 11,700 crore is expected to be spent on rural employment.’ A few sentences later, the figure was given as 11,300 crore. And there was to be in addition, Rs. 3,000 crore under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojna (SGRY).

... contd.