India

Short report of the workshop of journalists, journalism students and social activists on Employment Guarantee programme

19-21 September 2008, Bangalore

This was a workshop that has just concluded this evening. So this report will be necessarily brief. A longer report will be prepared in the days to come.

This workshop had almost forty participants. About half of them were journalists and journalism students. The others were social activists. An act was passed by the Government of India two years ago, called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Today this act states that every rural family in India is guaranteed 100 days of employment by the government. This means that small farmers and landless agricultural labourers in the country-side, who do not find employment in the dry season, are now guaranteed 100 days of work by the government.

The type of work that they can do is to build roads, deepen lakes, build small check dams etc. In one district in Kerala, which had hundreds of farmers committing suicide, this programme has come as a great blessing. The suicides have stopped.

This programme has revolutionary potential, as far as grass roots civil society action is concerned. It has the potential to create citizens involvement from the bottom, and make participatory democracy work. Journalists and social activists can play a big role to monitor this programme and hold local government accountable. In Kerala where journalists are writing on this programme and monitoring it, there is almost 100% success. In Tamilnadu where journalists are not active there is much corruption in the programme. The local government officials put false names and steal the money. Even when people are given work, they are given only about half the salary. The other half is taken by the officials. So it is clear that the involvement of journalists and social activists in creating awareness can make this programme work. If this programme succeeds, like it has done in Kerala, hundreds of millions of very poor people will be benefitted.

Report by Siddhartha

participants in a session on NREGA & environmental regeneration

Participants in group discussion

Analysing the issues

Sharing knowledge