Fairly good job

Reports that the rural jobs programme will be extended countrywide acquire a special aura, because policywise so little moves in this government. And this is also an politically safe and economically sensible project extension, another rarity these days. The economic sensibility part needs reemphasis. This paper had argued that standard critiques of Government as wasteful should be tempered by the possibilities of the rural jobs programme. The key was changing the modus operandi as well as disclosure norms on record-keeping. The Right to Information Act and the law that launched the jobs programme both have provisions targeted at hiding or manipulating data.

As per 2006-07 official figures, a little over Rs 8800 crore was spent on the jobs programme and 90 crore mandays of employment were created. Note that given the colossal amounts spent on the non-poor — subsidies on fuel, education, power, water, ‘art and culture’ and money thrown at dysfunctional PSUs — what has been spent on the jobs programme and what will be spent if it is extended countrywide are small beer. Attention should be paid to two other variables: what the middleman is filching and the usefulness of assets created. Data suggests that there has been average improvement in the amount of money reaching the poor. The best performer here is Rajasthan — a BJP-ruled state incidentally, and a wonderful proof therefore that good schemes are politics-neutral. There have been good stories from states like Chhattisgarh, MP — again, both BJP-ruled — Tamil Nadu and even pockets of Jharkhand. Bengal and Kerala have done particularly poorly, despite the Left in Delhi claiming moral ownership of the scheme. This is a terrible paradox only Marxists can explain.

As for assets built, auditing has to assess the usefulness of the roads, bunds, dams, etc. To ignore this aspect would condemn the programme to becoming a quasi-dole scheme. Wages paid for useful work has a dignity which doles can’t provide. The government has a great chance to review all the data, tighten on-ground implementation of disclosure norms and then extend the programme.

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