On a bright January morning, Jaga Ram Garasia surveys his mustard fields in Chitrawas village with satisfaction. The crop is in full bloom, thanks to a good monsoon last year. But what he would much rather talk about is the past five years and how the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has brought stability and prosperity to his life.
?Earlier, there was no option but to head to Kelva or Rajsamand to work in the mines there. We used to earn between Rs 150-200 a day there as compared to the Rs 80-100 a day under NREGS, but it was difficult to make ends meet as one spends more when away from home. We are better off with the rozgar guarantee scheme, as it gives us employment right here. Moreover, my wife also contributes to the family income now,? says 35-year-old Garasia, a father of five. But what he values more is the stability the scheme offers, as he no longer has to move house and hearth in search of work. ?We can devote more time and resources to our land and the children also have stable schooling. There used to be constant breaks in their education and the only time we could tend to our land was during the agricultural season,? he says.
His sentiment is echoed in statistics. Chitrawas, in Udaipur district’s Gogunda Block ? part of Rajasthan’s tribal belt inhabited by the Garasia tribe and the Gameti clan of the Bhil tribe ? shows substantial changes in migration pattern of the village folk, with wage migration down by around 50% as compared to pre-NREGS days.
Interestingly, almost 80% of the workers under NREGS here are women, which means that most of the income being generated is in addition to what households were already earning.
For 33-year-old Rama Ram Gameti, the fact that his wife can now contribute to the family income is the biggest draw of NREGS. ?I and my wife manage the work among ourselves and even share household and other chores. If I am working on the farm, she goes for the NREGS work; otherwise, we work together on the scheme?s projects.?
?This way regular income is assured without hindering household activities,? says Rama Ram, who earlier used to move with his family to Sumerpur for most part of the year to work in the factories there. Chitrawas has 267 job cards having 782 registrants with individual post office accounts. As many as 227 households have been provided work in 2010-11, of which 18 have already worked for over 100 days. As per last year’s average, most households easily clock 80-90 days of employment, with almost 30% clocking more than 100 days. In this region, while almost every household owns some land, the average size of land holdings is less than one hectare, and only 50-60% of the plot area is fit for agriculture ? clearly insufficient to sustain livelihoods.
? Overall, distress seasonal migration has seen a negative trend in the area, but migration is a complex issue with its own dynamics. What we can be sure of is that now fewer people are migrating, and those who are still going out are not taking their families along,? says Kumar Rupam , senior project officer, Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), an NGO that is the only non-governmental implementing agency for NREGS in Rajasthan. Rupam adds that NREGS has led to a slight increase in the average annual family income per household, which is currently estimated to be around Rs 18,000-20,000 per annum. ?Also, NREGS has led to an increase in local wage rates for non-NREGS local works, as a minimum of Rs 100 is now a benchmark here,? he adds. Another 10 km away in nearby Karech village, still untouched by electricity, the agricultural season ended three months ago. And the fact that villagers are now looking at two yields from their land is a heartening sign with regard to arrest in distress migration. Karech has 294 job cards with 889 registrants. As many as 183 households have been provided work in the current financial year, though none of the households have completed 100 days of work yet. The impact of NREGS here is no different. And for the old and withered eyes of Hansa Ram Garasia , this is a welcome change. Hansa Ram has his own ideas about making NREGS more effective in arresting distress migration. He wants the number of minimum days to be increased substantially from 100. ?More work related to water harvesting should also be done as it would create employment and improve farming, thereby incentivising people to stay,? he says. There are problems too, of course, but Panchayat and Block officials call these minor. BDO Atul Jain hopes these will disappear in course of time. After all, delayed payments, distant post offices and red-tapism do seem minor when one sees the happy faces of Jaga Ram Garasia and his five children sharing a meal together in the middle of their fields.