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National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of India: Some Conceptual Problems

The need for containment of “surplus population,” deployment of untapped resources and ensuring “right to work” have induced the developing world to take up programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India. However, contrary to the proposed target of short- and long-run employment generation outside the circuit of big capital, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in fact, could act as an instrument for capital accumulation itself by helping in direct transfer of resources or in diversification towards “market-oriented” resource use. Labour would be used in the initial rounds, but later on a process of accumulation and displacement could be engendered. Researchers also criticize the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme from the perspective of government budget management. However, we argue that government budget constraint and consequently, demand-side conflict between the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the non-National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme employment is not so important; there is rather a significant supply-side trade-off. Furthermore, political mobilization of people is the key for effective pro-poor utilization of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the short and long run, consistent with local traits, needs and resources. But bureaucracy and the so called state institutions of decentralization are practising a variety of patron–client relationships vis-à-vis the commoners and there is no serious attempt by the established political parties—be it left or right—to mobilize people's voice.