Right to Employment: Implementation of NREGA
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA):
FEDINA organises and enables the marginalised to demand employment. Since 2005 we have been helping them tap into the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) by (a) raising awareness about the scheme (b) fighting for effective implementation (c) demanding equal wages for equal work and (d) auditing, questioning and monitoring the implementation of the scheme. Under the Act, if those who register and apply for the job are not given a job within 15 days, they are eligible for an unemployment allowance. However, this provision is usually not adhered to. We make the authorities accountable, by enabling the workers to demand this allowance. We use NREGA to develop land of small tribal and dalit lands, and to strengthen the unionisation process of agricultural workers in rural areas so that they are able to negotiate with landlords.
Most of our groups attempt to implement this act. As we know this act published in 2005, provides hundred days of work for rural workers. Besides this guarantee, the act assures a salary of Rs. 100/-. If people demand NREGA, and the district authorities do not provide it within 15 days, workers are entitled to an unemployment allowance. There is also a provision for equal wages for equal work for men and women. Finally, NREGA is supposed to improve village infrastructure. Fedina groups try to motivate agricultural workers to demand NREGA. Besides demanding NREGA, we insist that our groups demand proper implementation of all clauses, including forming monitoring groups at Panchayath levels. We insist that our groups avail NREGA to alter supply and demand of labour at the village level, in favour of workers to facilitate unionization of agricultural workers. We have realized that among our groups those who have taken up seriously the task of using NREGA to change demand and supply of labour in favour of labour, have also succeeded in forming trade unions of agricultural workers in the villages. These unions may be small and weak but they exist and will develop themselves. It is here that we see the advantages of being present in the five Southern States. Our “logic” is to forge unions of agricultural workers and informal sector workers to improve wages and living conditions of working people. Our effort is to see, that these unions spread all over or spread as much as possible starting from a particular place or particular point. In the two or three years to come, we will continue working for the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to change the supply and demand of labour in favour of labour and use the situation to form unions of agricultural workers in as many places as possible.