In view of the fact the scheme doesn’t differentiate between the poor and the non-poor, or between dalits and non-dalits in terms of eligibility for employment, the relative inclusion of dalits in delivery of employment can be taken as a good indicator of a state’s commitment to equitable development. Given that the scheme needs to be extended with greater urgency to communities known to suffer from greater degrees of poverty, treatment of dalits at par with other population sub-groups points at the lack of a good understanding of poverty and the lack of commitment to use the scheme as an opportunity to reach out pro-actively to the poorest population sub-groups.

This also points at the need for extending reservations to dalits in identification of beneficiaries, which is a constitutional right of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The NREGA in its current form has no such provision.

Entitlements Under NREGA – Myriad Ways Of Denial
During the National Tribunal on NREGA organized at the India Social Forum by Wada N Todo Abhiyan and PACS in November 2006, hundreds of dalit labourers recounted numerous instances of denial of their entitlements under NREGA.

For instance, Anita Devi, a landless Musahar woman from East Champaran district of Bihar mentioned how job cards were issued in her village only after people organized a dharna in September 2006. However, even after officially applying for work in September, she had not been given any work till the second week of November, making a mockery of significant provisions like ‘unemployment allowance’, which makes any labourer eligible for receiving unemployment allowance on a daily basis, if not provided employment within 15 days of demand. As a matter of fact, not a single labourer present at the NREGA Tribunal could recall any payment of unemployment allowance, to anyone for even a day. Various instances of irregularities in provision of employment opportunities were brought to the fore by dalit labourers at the Tribunal held at the India Social Forum.

Common grievances included (i) issue of extremely limited number of job cards, (ii) unreasonable delays in issue of cards, (iii) job cards lacking necessary records, e.g. dates of employment provision, wages paid etc., (iv) demand of bribe for issuing cards/photographs, (v) excessive delays in employment provision despite demands being made long before, (vi) underpayment of wages, (vii) underreporting of number of days of employment provided and payment of less wages accordingly and (viii) non-payment of unemployment allowance. Significantly, none of the panchayats represented at the tribunal could recall distribution of more than fifty job cards. In many panchayats of the country, it is common practice for supervisors and engineers to deny minimum wages payable to labourers by quoting deficiencies in the quantum of work performed by the latter, which affects labourers from the dalit communities the most on account of their relatively limited ownership of land and other productive assets.

Limited Reach Vis-À-Vis Hot Spots Of Hunger And Disasters
Since the launch of NREGA, several appalling cases of starvation deaths have occurred in the country, mostly involving dalits as victims. In some cases, as in the case of Sarupiya Devi of Darbhanga district, Bihar, who worked for 40 days under the scheme before dying of hunger, the fatal delay in payment of wages points at the typical apathy of administrators of the scheme towards marginalized people. Unfortunately, Sarupiya Devi’s death, publicly discussed and condemned during a jan sunvai organized by the All India Agricultural Labour Association in August 2006 at New Delhi while the Monsoon session of parliament was underway, did not create any sense of urgency towards expediting the delivery of the scheme, and till date, NREGA remains a virtual non-starter across a large number of panchayats in Bihar. Similar instances of hunger deaths of people who could never avail of employment under NREGA despite possessing valid job cards were also reported from some other places, e.g. Rohtas. The exclusion of a large number of dalit communities in disaster-prone regions of several states, e.g. Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar, where the scheme hasn’t progressed beyond tokenistic issue of job cards to a handful of rural households, is appalling.

Misappropriations by Non-Dalits In Heterogeneous Communities
A critical area of concern relating to NREGA’ reach vis-à-vis communities of the dalits is the high likelihood of misappropriation of employment opportunities by non-dalits in communities where dalits co-exist along with socially dominant castes. For instance, in villages like Badanpura in Karauli district of Rajasthan, people hailing from dominant castes are known to forcefully claim a share in the wages of dalit labourers earned from supply of labour under NREGA, by pressurizing the sarpanch. As a result, not a single labourer from the dalit community has ever been able to claim their daily entitlement of Rs. 73/- payable as minimum wages in lieu of unskilled labour.

Instances of Assertion and Actualization Of Entitlements
In several places, dalit communities and their organizations had to forcefully assert themselves against instances of denial of their entitlements under NREGA. One of the significant acts of assertion of dalit labourers was seen in Nagphana (Bolangir district, Orissa) where hundreds of labourers went on a mass-strike in protest against non-payment of wages as per the standard piece-rate amounts specified under the provisions of the Act. The labourers insisted on payments on a pro-rata basis for every additional quantum of work performed in excess of the standard specifications and did not turn up for work till the contractors agreed to pay them their due wages. Subsequently, the labourers also set up a committee of their own in the village, which keeps copies of all relevant documents and muster rolls relating to employment activities and other schemes in the village, including works implemented directly by the panchayat. Similar acts of protest were organized at Villupuram (Tamil Nadu) where dalit labourers refused to accept wages falling short of the minimum wages prescribed by the state government.

During 2006, significant campaigns were undertaken under the banner of NACDOR – a national level confederation of dalit organizations – in several states of India, with the objectives of bringing about mass awareness about NREGA and exposing glaring irregularities. NACDOR’s initiatives to this effect included Rozgar Adhikar Yatras, Public Tribunals and direct dialogues with government functionaries.

Salient Programme Implications
Dalits, bearing a greater susceptibility to exclusion due to social reasons, need to be purposively targeted and reporting of their coverage under the scheme must be made mandatory for all panchayats known to be inhabited by dalit communities. Similarly, known hot spots of hunger, natural disasters and epidemics, mostly coincident with habitations of dalit communities, must be purposively targeted under the scheme.

Only a clearly articulated policy of affirmative action favouring pro-active inclusion of dalits can make a scheme like NREGA effectively contribute to poverty reduction. The scheme needs to be envisaged as an opportunity to address the disparities between dalits and non-dalits, by according preference to dalit labourers, locating work-sites closer to dalit habitations and deputing a greater number of administrators/monitors hailing from dalit communities.