EDITORIAL POSTAL CRUSADER NOVEMBER-2014

JCM STAFF SIDE UNITY SHOULD BE FOR STRUGGLE

            History of Central Government Employees reveals that Government has taken undue advantage to deny the justified demands of the Central Government Employees, whenever there was disunity among the JCM staff side organizations. On the contrary, whenever staffside stood solidly united the Government was compelled to concede the legitimate rights of the employees to a great extent.

            After Fifth  Pay Commission recommendations, the JCM National council staffside submitted to Government a common charter of demands for modifications of the recommendations of the Pay Commission, which included upward revision of fitment formula and removal of certain glaring anomalies. When Government refused to concede it , notice for indefinite strike was given and finally the Government had to appoint a high-power Group of Ministers Committee under the chairmanship of then Home Minister Shri.Indrajith Gupta and negotiated with the staffside.  In the negotiations also the staffside took a united uncompromising stand which ultimately resulted in Government accepting the demand for 40% fitment formula and some other important demands.

            Unfortunately, when the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations were  submitted to Government, the JCM National Council Staffside miserably failed to take such a firm and united stand and no serious agitational programme was conducted demanding modification of the retrograde recommendations. Instead the dominant leadership of JCM staffside took a compromising stand and depended only on negotiated settlement , without mobilizing the entire rank and file membership behind the demands. Ultimately Government took advantage of this weakness of the leadership and unilaterally announced the implementation of the 6^th CPC recommendations, without conceding majority of the genuine demands raised by the staffside during negotiations. Faulty formula adopted for calculation of  Need Based Minimum Wage , glaring disparity in fitment and fixation formula between lower level officials  and Group- A officers, unscientific pay band and grade pay system and serious anomalies arising out of it , MACP anomalies   everything remained as such  which could not be settled even after seven years.

            Again , when the Government announced the New Contributory Pension Scheme with effect from 01.01.2004 for the new entrants in Central Government Services without any consultation with the JCM National Council Staffside, the dominant  leadership of the JCM staffside did not protest and kept silent. This has emboldened the Government to go ahead with the implementation of the neo-liberal pension reforms. Had the entire JCM Staffside including Railways, Defence and Confederation taken a united stand to oppose the New Pension Scheme and given call for serious agitational programmes including indefinite strike the Government would not have dared to implement the NPS. Of course , Confederation of Central Government Employees and workers opposed the New Pension Scheme and has gone to the extent of conducting one day strike. JCM leadership raised the demand for roll-back of NPS after a very long time and by that time Government succeeded in fully implementing the scheme.

Confederation of Central Government Employees and workers has always stood for unity among the Central Government Employees .When confederation submitted a 15 point charter  to the UPA Government in 2011 demanding appointment of 7 th CPC , 5 year wage revision , Merger of 50% DA, Inclusion of Gramin Dak Sevaks under 7^th CPC etc, the  other major organizations in the JCM were not ready to raise the demands in 2011. Finally confederation was forced to go it alone and conducted series of agitational programmes including Parliament March, one day strike and two days strike. Of course, the lonely struggle conducted by confederation represented the mood of the entirety of Central Government Employees and ultimately the Government was compelled to announce constitution of 7^th CPC in the month of September 2013.

           

                        Now NDA Government which came to power after General   Election has rejected all the main demands of the Central Government Employees which includes merger of DA , Interim Relief , Date of  effect  from 01.01.2014 , inclusion of GDS in the terms of reference of 7^th CPC ,scrapping of New Pension Scheme etc. Further Government declared 100% FDI  in Railways and Defence. Public Private Partnership in Railways was also announced in Railway budget. More than five lakhs posts are lying vacant in various Departments out of which about 2.5 lakhs vacancies are in Railways alone. The UPA Government has unilaterally announced the terms of reference of the 7^th CPC rejecting the draft proposal submitted by JCM staffside.  The memorandum submitted by JCM staffside to the NDA Government for grant of merger of DA and Interim Relief also was totally neglected. The JCM Staffside leadership could not do anything and the employees are suffering. In fact the JCM staffside has become a laughing stock among the employees and its credibility in the eyes of the employees has eroded like anything.

                        It is in this background , eventhough belatedly , the JCM National Council Staffside has decided to organize a National Convention at New Delhi on 11^th December 2014 , to discuss and finalise its strategy to combat the above humiliation meted out by the Government . Better late than never. The decision is well received by the entire Central Government Employees and they are eagerly waiting for the outcome of the convention.

                        NFPE  firmly believes that if the present unity among the JCM staffside organizations is not channelized for building up united struggle including indefinite strike of entire Central Government Employees the National Convention will become a futile exercise and an eye-wash to cool down the growing discontentment among the employees. This shall not happen. We firmly believe in the slogan raised by our late legendary leader Com K.G.Bose- i.e  “UNITY FOR STRUGGLE AND STRUGGLE FOR UNITY”. Such a stand alone can restore the lost glory of the fighting potential of the Central Government Employees and also shall regain the lost faith of employees in the JCM staffside leadership. We cannot be a party to any compromise on the genuine and justified demands of the workers. Let us hope that the JCM staffside leadership shall rise up to the occasion.

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES

1^st Floor North Avenue Post Office Building, New Delhi-110 001

PF-o1(C)/NFPE                                                                     Dated: 30^th October, 2014

NOTICE

It is hereby notified that the Federal Secretariat Meeting of NFPE will be held at NFPE Office, 1st Floor North Avenue Post Office Building, New Delhi-110 001 on 10^th November, 2014 at 3PM.

All General Secretaries of NFPE & NFPE Office Bearers available at HQ are requested to attend the meeting in time:

The following will be the agenda:

AGENDA

1.    Postal JCA Charter of demands – Agitational programme- Review and further course of action.

2.    Dec-4^th -2014- PJCA –Parliament March –Review,

3.    Any other item with the permission of Chair,

                                                                                                  

                                                                                            (R.N. Parashar)

                                                                               Secretary General

Copy to: All General Secretaries of NFPE Unions and available NFPE Office Bearers at New Delhi.                                                                                                                      

POSTAL JOINT COUNCIL OF ACTION

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES

1^st Floor North Avenue Post Office Building New Delhi-110001

FEDERATION OF NATIONAL POSTAL ORGANISATIONS

T-24, Atul Grove Road, New Delhi-110001

No.PF-PJCA/2014                                                                  Dated : 30^th October,2014

NOTICE

It is hereby notified that the meeting of Postal JCA consisting NFPE and FNPO will be held on 11^thNovember, 2014 at 2PM at NFPE Office, 1^st Floor North Avenue Post Office Building, New Delhi-110 001.

All General Secretaries of NFPE, FNPO and GDS Unions are requested to attend the meeting in time.

The following will be the agenda:

AGENDA

1.    Postal JCA Charter of demands – Agitational programme- Review and further course of action.

2.    Dec-4^th -2014- PJCA –Parliament March –Review,

3.    Any other item with the permission of Chair,

                                                                                                  

(D. Theagarajan)                                                                                     (R.N. Parashar)

Secretary General                                                                                 Secretary General

         FNPO                                                                                                     NFPE

Copy to : All General Secretaries of NFPE/FNPO & GDS Unions.

NFPE DIAMOND JUBILEE – SOUVENIR ADVERTISEMENT

Preparation for the Grand Final Celebration of NFPE Diamond Jubilee is going on in full swing in Dwarka (Gujarat) under the leadership of reception committee. CHQs of all affiliated unions/Associations (P3, P4, R3, R4, Admin, Postal Accounts, SBCO, GDS) of NFPE had already issued notice for the central Working committee on 23^rd & 24^th November 2014. NFPE CHQ has invited all Ex-All India Leaders to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Reception Committee will honour all leaders.

Please Help Receiption Committee

Gujarat is a small Circle. Total expenditure for the celebration will be around 15 Lakh rupees. Receiption Committee has already requested all Circle/Divisional secretaries to help them by collecting maximum advertisements for the souvenir. Tariff and order forms are already sent. Please collect maximum amount as advertisement and send it to Reception Committee before 15^th November 2014.

Government to launch revamped Kisan Vikas Patra soon: Official

Government to launch revamped Kisan Vikas Patra soon: Official

The government will soon launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) besides some new saving instrument programmes for the girl child as well for the physically challenged person, a senior finance ministry official said today. 

"We are going to launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) soon again in the form of saving instrument," Rajat Bhargava, Joint Secretary (Budget) in the ministry finance said at an event here. 

"Similarly, the government of India is also going to launch some new saving instrument programmes for girl child as well as for the physically challenged person who has not been covered so far (under the programme)," Bhargava added. 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Budget speech, had said he will re-introduce the KVP, which was a very popular instrument among small savers. 

"I plan to reintroduce the instrument to encourage people, who may have banked and unbanked savings to invest in this instrument," Jaitley had said. 

The KVP was discontinued by the UPA government in 2011 following the Shyamala Gopinath Committee report. It had suggested that KVPs may be discontinued as they are prone to misuse. 

KVP was a popular saving scheme that doubled the money invested in eight years and seven months. The government sold these saving bonds through Post Offices in the country. 

The new government has identified financial inclusion and access to formal financial channels as a priority area and the reintroduction of KVP is seen as furthering this objective.

Source : The Economic Times

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY COM. M. KRISHNAN, SECRETARY GENERAL, CCGEW, IN THE INAUGURAL SESSION OF 21ST AIC OF AIPAEA

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY COM. M. KRISHNAN, SECRETARY GENERAL, CCGEW, IN THE INAUGURAL SESSION OF 21ST AIC OF AIPAEA

CLICK HERE TO HEAR COM. M. KRISHNAN

Prime Minister Narendra Modi should appoint a defence minister — a full-time one — and demonstrate a great deal of administrative acumen and political will if he is serious about his declared intent to strengthen India’s national security and defence preparedness. Indeed, the absence of a full-time defence minister is merely symptomatic of a larger set of serious structural problems being faced by the country’s higher defence management today, which is in urgent need of innovative reforms and radical restructuring. Mr. Modi’s address to the Combined Commanders Conference in New Delhi on October 17 found no mention of structural reforms in higher defence management whereas his predecessor did mention it from time to time even though the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had sidestepped implementing the crucial reforms. The disturbing reality today is that in the absence of a full-time defence minister and by not introducing defence reforms, it is the civilian bureaucracy — having generalist IAS officers whose expertise in defence matters is questionable — that has a major say in the country’s defence planning and decision-making. This needs to change. Committee recommendations The demand for reforms in India’s higher defence management is a long-standing one and has grown in strength ever since the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) recommended a number of reforms. In 2000, the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government appointed a Group of Ministers (GoM), with four task forces on intelligence reforms, internal security, border management, and higher defence management, to review the country’s defence preparedness in the light of the KRC’s recommendations. Many of the recommendations made by the GoM were only partially implemented. And the most important one, of creating the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), was ignored. As a result, it has been widely perceived over the past decade or so that the country’s defence sector needs further restructuring. In response, the UPA government appointed a task force on national security under the chairmanship of Mr. Naresh Chandra in 2011; it submitted its report a year later. Although classified, some of its content has been leaked to the press. Many of its recommendations were not to the liking of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Defence Minister. As a result, the UPA government lost an opportunity to introduce crucial reforms. The report was to have been taken up by the Cabinet Committee on Security in February this year — after the government sat on it for no less than one-and-a-half years, but it was too late by then as the UPA government felt that it should not take key national security decisions in its final days in office. It’s now the turn of the NDA government to act.

Civilian supremacy and defence reforms: The Hindu

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi should appoint a defence minister — a full-time one — and demonstrate a great deal of administrative acumen and political will if he is serious about his declared intent to strengthen India’s national security and defence preparedness. Indeed, the absence of a full-time defence minister is merely symptomatic of a larger set of serious structural problems being faced by the country’s higher defence management today, which is in urgent need of innovative reforms and radical restructuring. Mr. Modi’s address to the Combined Commanders Conference in New Delhi on October 17 found no mention of structural reforms in higher defence management whereas his predecessor did mention it from time to time even though the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had sidestepped implementing the crucial reforms.

The disturbing reality today is that in the absence of a full-time defence minister and by not introducing defence reforms, it is the civilian bureaucracy — having generalist IAS officers whose expertise in defence matters is questionable — that has a major say in the country’s defence planning and decision-making. This needs to change.

Committee recommendations

The demand for reforms in India’s higher defence management is a long-standing one and has grown in strength ever since the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) recommended a number of reforms. In 2000, the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government appointed a Group of Ministers (GoM), with four task forces on intelligence reforms, internal security, border management, and higher defence management, to review the country’s defence preparedness in the light of the KRC’s recommendations. Many of the recommendations made by the GoM were only partially implemented. And the most important one, of creating the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), was ignored. 

 As a result, it has been widely perceived over the past decade or so that the country’s defence sector needs further restructuring. In response, the UPA government appointed a task force on national security under the chairmanship of Mr. Naresh Chandra in 2011; it submitted its report a year later. Although classified, some of its content has been leaked to the press. Many of its recommendations were not to the liking of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Defence Minister. As a result, the UPA government lost an opportunity to introduce crucial reforms. The report was to have been taken up by the Cabinet Committee on Security in February this year — after the government sat on it for no less than one-and-a-half years, but it was too late by then as the UPA government felt that it should not take key national security decisions in its final days in office. It’s now the turn of the NDA government to act.

The Minister for Communications & IT and Law and Justice World Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad will inaugurate the Postal Savings Banks Forum in New Delhi tomorrow. This year’s forum is being organised by World Savings and Retail Banking Institute (WSBI) jointly with the National Savings Organisation (Ministry of Finance) and the Department of Posts. The theme of this year’s Postal Savings Banks Forum will be "The rising force of postal banking in the retail banking market". The role of postal operators in the world of retail banking is often overlooked. Post Offices worldwide hold 1.6 billion savings and deposit accounts. This is second only to commercial banks, which hold about 2.5 billion accounts. Thus, post offices are critical to the pursuit of financial inclusion, which is recognised today as a vital pre-requisite to socio-economic development. The Universal Postal Union estimates that several hundred million people, often without an account, use the Post to make and receive basic payment transactions such as domestic and international transfers, government payments and utility payments. Postal operators, in all their activities, have always relied on a business model based on large volumes and low costs. Combined with the universal service obligation through which the State gives the mandate to the Post to serve the entire population, these specific features make the Post a worthwhile ally in the fight against financial exclusion. Financial inclusion brought about through the postal network is called postal financial inclusion. India has about 1.55 lakh post offices, which is more than the combined branch strength of commercial banks (about 1 lakh). The number of savings accounts held in post offices in India is about 31 crore, which is more than that of any commercial bank in the country. The postal network possesses excellent cash management abilities and is trusted for its governance practices. Thus India seems to have the right mix of ingredients to deliver concrete results in postal financial inclusion. Hence the WSBI Postal Savings Bank Forum is of considerable interest to the Banking Sector in India.

A Curtain Raiser on Postal Savings Banks Forum

The Minister for Communications & IT and Law and Justice World Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad will inaugurate the Postal Savings Banks Forum in New Delhi tomorrow. 

This year’s forum is being organised by World Savings and Retail Banking Institute (WSBI) jointly with the National Savings Organisation (Ministry of Finance) and the Department of Posts. 

The theme of this year’s Postal Savings Banks Forum will be "The rising force of postal banking in the retail banking market".

The role of postal operators in the world of retail banking is often overlooked. Post Offices worldwide hold 1.6 billion savings and deposit accounts. This is second only to commercial banks, which hold about 2.5 billion accounts. Thus, post offices are critical to the pursuit of financial inclusion, which is recognised today as a vital pre-requisite to socio-economic development.

The Universal Postal Union estimates that several hundred million people, often without an account, use the Post to make and receive basic payment transactions such as domestic and international transfers, government payments and utility payments. Postal operators, in all their activities, have always relied on a business model based on large volumes and low costs. Combined with the universal service obligation through which the State gives the mandate to the Post to serve the entire population, these specific features make the Post a worthwhile ally in the fight against financial exclusion.

Financial inclusion brought about through the postal network is called postal financial inclusion. India has about 1.55 lakh post offices, which is more than the combined branch strength of commercial banks (about 1 lakh). The number of savings accounts held in post offices in India is about 31 crore, which is more than that of any commercial bank in the country. The postal network possesses excellent cash management abilities and is trusted for its governance practices. Thus India seems to have the right mix of ingredients to deliver concrete results in postal financial inclusion. Hence the WSBI Postal Savings Bank Forum is of considerable interest to the Banking Sector in India.

Office Memorandum on Regularization of Casual Labour with Temporary Status - Proposals from Ministries & Departments

Office Memorandum on Regularization of Casual Labour with Temporary Status - Proposals from Ministries & Departments

New Delhi: The government will soon launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) besides some new saving instrument programmes for the girl child as well for the physically challenged person, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Tuesday. "We are going to launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) soon again in the form of saving instrument," Rajat Bhargava, Joint Secretary (Budget) in the ministry finance said at an event here. "Similarly, the government of India is also going to launch some new saving instrument programmes for girl child as well as for the physically challenged person who has not been covered so far (under the programme)," Bhargava added. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Budget speech, had said he will re-introduce the KVP, which was a very popular instrument among small savers. "I plan to reintroduce the instrument to encourage people, who may have banked and unbanked savings to invest in this instrument," Jaitley had said. The KVP was discontinued by the UPA government in 2011 following the Shyamala Gopinath Committee report. It had suggested that KVPs may be discontinued as they are prone to misuse. KVP was a popular saving scheme that doubled the money invested in eight years and seven months. The government sold these saving bonds through Post Offices in the country. The new government has identified financial inclusion and access to formal financial channels as a priority area and the reintroduction of KVP is seen as furthering this objective.

Government to launch revamped Kisan Vikas Patra soon: Finance Ministry

New Delhi: The government will soon launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) besides some new saving instrument programmes for the girl child as well for the physically challenged person, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Tuesday.

"We are going to launch the revamped Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) soon again in the form of saving instrument," Rajat Bhargava, Joint Secretary (Budget) in the ministry finance said at an event here.

    

"Similarly, the government of India is also going to launch some new saving instrument programmes for girl child as well as for the physically challenged person who has not been covered so far (under the programme)," Bhargava added.

     

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Budget speech, had said he will re-introduce the KVP, which was a very popular instrument among small savers.

    

"I plan to reintroduce the instrument to encourage people, who may have banked and unbanked savings to invest in this instrument," Jaitley had said.

    

The KVP was discontinued by the UPA government in 2011 following the Shyamala Gopinath Committee report. It had suggested that KVPs may be discontinued as they are prone to misuse.

     

KVP was a popular saving scheme that doubled the money invested in eight years and seven months. The government sold these saving bonds through Post Offices in the country.

    

The new government has identified financial inclusion and access to formal financial channels as a priority area and the reintroduction of KVP is seen as furthering this objective.

Conducting of Inspector Posts and LGO Examination, 2014

Conducting of Inspector Posts and LGO Examination, 2014

Department of Posts (DE Section) vide its letter no A-34012/04/2014-DE dated 17/10/2014 has communicated the schedule of limited Departmental Examination for promotion to the cadre of Inspector Posts (66.66%) Departmental quota for the year 2014 and promotion of LGOs to the cadre of PA/SAs.

LDCE for promotion to the cadre of Inspector Posts for the year 2014.

Date of Examination	Paper No.
22/11/2014 (Suturday)	Paper-I & II
23/11/2014 (Sunday)	Paper-III & IV

LDCE for promotion of LGOs to the cadre of Postal Assistants / Sorting Assistants for the year 2014.

Date of Examination	Paper No.
23/11/2014 (Sunday)	Paper-I & II

POSTAL JCA - FIVE DAYS DHARNA PROGRAMME COMMENCED ON 27/10/2014 IN ODISHA CIRCLE IN FRONT OF CHIEF PMG OFFICE, BHUBANESWAR

POSTAL JCA - FIVE DAYS DHARNA PROGRAMME COMMENCED ON 27/10/2014 IN ODISHA CIRCLE IN FRONT OF CHIEF PMG OFFICE, BHUBANESWAR

 

HOLDING OF NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL (JCM) (STAFF SIDE).

PostMan examination question paper held 26/10/2014

NFPE DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATION AT THRISSUR DIVISION (KERALA).

Govt Employee Can’t Seek Promotion After Refusing It: SC

Govt Employee Can’t Seek Promotion After Refusing It: SC

New Delhi: A government employee, whose promotion is canceled owing to his refusal to accept it, cannot ask for it at a later stage, the Supreme Court has said.

The apex court set aside the order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which had directed the state government to restore the promotion of one of its employees whose promotion was cancelled after he turned down the offer as he did not want to get transferred to some other place.

“As we find that it is the respondent himself who is responsible for cancellation of the promotion order as he did not join the promoted post, the impugned order of the high court is clearly erroneous and against the law,” a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said.

The court passed the order on an appeal filed by Madhya Pradesh government challenging the high court order.

The government had submitted that the high court failed to consider that Ramanand Pandey himself sent back the promotion order and continued on his post and approached the court after two years when it cancelled his promotion.

It said that at the time of promotion, Pandey was posted in Bhind district where he remained for almost 15 years and his intention was to stay at that place only.

The apex court, after hearing both sides, quashed the high court order.

“It is clear that he wanted to remain in Bhind district, where he had continued since 1990, as he was ready to go on leave instead of joining the place of transfer. Moreover, for more than two years from the date of cancellation of the order of promotion, the respondent kept totally mum and maintained stoic silence.

“There was not even a semblance of protest as to why his promotion order was cancelled or that he wanted to join the promotion post after the alleged inquiry into the so-called complaint was over. He filed the writ petition on October 24, 2008, i.e. almost two years after cancellation of his promotion order,” it said.

The Rs 2,66,000 crore NREGA boondoggle; for every Rs 5 spent, the poor get Re 1 - NEWS

The Rs 2,66,000 crore NREGA boondoggle; for every Rs 5 spent, the poor get Re 1 - NEWS

It is not surprising that any talk of revamping the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA for short) brings forth a deluge of protest from jholawala economists and vested interests. The Left loves government spends in the name of the poor, regardless of corruption and unmindful of actual results.

The Modi government’s proposal to change the spending mix on NREGA from 60:40 (for material and wages) to 51:49 and to focus the scheme on the 200 poorest districts (or 2,500 blocks) has brought forth a open letter from 28 “leading” economists to abandon the effort. “Despite numerous hurdles, the NREGA has achieved significant results. At a relatively small cost (currently 0.3 percent of India's GDP), about 50 million households are getting some employment at NREGA worksites every year. A majority of NREGA workers are women, and close to half are Dalits or Adivasis. A large body of research shows that the NREGA has wide-ranging social benefits, including the creation of productive assets.”

This is, of course, largely bunkum. Nobody needs to deny that some good must have come from spending a massive Rs 2,66,000 crore on NREGA over the last eight years, but even better results could have been achieved by abandoning the charade of providing employment at such huge cost and showering this kind of money from a helicopter in poor areas.

In fact, the evidence is to the contrary: the money is largely going down the drain.

As economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya note in a critique of the scheme in The Times of India, NREGA (after taking corruption and leakages into account) essentially spends as much as Rs 248 in order to deliver a net Rs 50 per person per day. In other words, the scheme is highly inefficient even as a poverty alleviation scheme as it takes nearly Rs 5 to deliver Re 1 worth of benefits to the poor. Would not the poor have benefited more from direct cash transfers of a higher amount without hassles and middlemen?

Quite clearly, NREGA is going the same way as the food subsidy scheme, where too just 12 paise out of every rupee spent reaches the right beneficiary .

To make matters worse, state governments are now dragging their feet on implementing the scheme, which promises one member of a household 100 days of employment every year, failing which some kind of unemployment allowance is paid by the states. A report in The Indian Express today (24 October) quotes from the minutes of an internal review of the rural development ministry on the scheme as saying that “states expressed their inability to continue the uninterrupted implementation of MGNREG, given the situation of an overall fund shortage.”

It is not as if the scheme, even now, is working to full potential. As against the 100 days of employment promised, it has seldom managed to provide even 50 mandays on an average per household per year. Mostly it has been in the forties. This year, the figure is down to 31.4 mandays per household till mid-October.

What this suggests is that both demand (for work) and supply (by state governments) is weak – raising questions about the viability and utility of the scheme. It is quite possible that demand for NREGA work may not be as robust as presumed, thanks to the general improvement in rural incomes with the steady and increased fund flows to rural areas, which includes investments in infrastructure and consistently rising minimum support prices (MSPs) for foodgrain.

If NREGA had been a big driver of rural incomes, it should have left its impact on food inflation too, but a Reserve Bank of India study found that MSPs and rising rural wages impacted food inflation more than NREGA wages. If the scheme had actually had that big an impact on rural incomes, one would have thought it would have been a major factor in boosting food prices since only the poorest of the poor opt for work under NREGA. And the poor spend more of their incomes on food than the non-poor.

It is quite clear from all this that NREGA is a costly boondoggle which is not achieving even its core objectives of providing enough work to the poor and building durable assets that can increase productivity. If assets had been built, they should have improved rural productivity and impacted food prices downwards. And if only 31 mandays of work are being provided against the mandated 100, it means either the work is not needed or not being provided.

There are thus three possible remedies now.

First, the centre could offer to transfer the funds allocated to NREGA in the budget as a direct grant to states to spend it on any poverty alleviating scheme that works for them. This would be in keeping with Modi’s federalist thinking.

Second, the funds can be converted to direct income support to the poorest of the poor using the Aadhaar-enabled inclusive banking scheme, the Jan Dhan Yojana. Not only will the money go directly to the poor, but their bank accounts would also start getting used.

Third, the best option would be to use the money to build rural infrastructure and assets in the 200 poorest districts where poverty levels are high. This way the projects will generate real jobs at real wages – and not just pointless work and corruption.

Any which way you look at it, NREGA has been a disaster. The NDA has to rework it to get better bang for the buck.