Natural rural empathy guarantee?

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: The National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is the single largest public works programme in human history. Showcasing the United Progressive Alliance’s commitment to inclusive growth, it has had no small role to play in the formation’s startling electoral triumph.

The scheme made the government legally accountable for providing employment to all citizens seeking work. It was notified in 200 districts in February 2006, extended to an additional 130 districts in 2007-08, and across the whole country in April 2008.

So, how has this massive public work programme impacted electoral outcomes? Its growing popularity is one indicator. There were 2.12 crore households demanding employment in 2006-07. The numbers rose to 3.43 crore in 2007-08 and to 4.52 crore in 2008-09. The government, in response, was forced to increase the number of households provided employment from 2.1 crore to 3.39 crore and further to 4.46 crore during this period.

Obviously, the expansion of the NREG to 4.46 households by just the third year is an impressive achievement. Equally obviously, it has had a major impact on both the economy and the polity. For one, the inclusion of 4.46 crore households in the scheme would mean that it has impacted almost 70% of the country’s rural labour households! There are 6.42 crore of them in India, and it is highly unlikely that any other scheme—including the PDS—has had a comparable impact on their well-being, or on rural welfare and poverty reduction in general.

Next, let’s look at employment generation. Total person days of employment created have shot up from 90 crore in the first year to 144 crore in the second, and 339 crore in the third. Expenditure on the NREG has gone up from Rs 12,074 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 19,279 crore in 2007-08, and further to Rs 36,153 crore in 2008-09. And we will see the government pumping in even more money. The most recent numbers show that it has already spent a massive Rs 6,622 crore on the scheme in the first one and a half months of 2009-10.