In India, there has been controversy over a public program that guarantees 100 days of paid work a year for any unskilled rural laborer who wants it. Mr. Jairam Ramesh, who runs India’s biggest civilian ministry, has attacked the program for being extremely corrupt and largely ineffective.
The public program is India’s biggest welfare project to date; it costs around $8 billion a year, and eats up over 3% of all public spending. Supporters argue that it has helped lift rural wages in much of India. But in many districts, especially the poorest ones, huge amounts of money that come from the program are either stolen or wasted.
Mr. Ramesh has criticized the “uneven, patchy” implementation of the program, and has complained about months-long delays in getting workers paid. He has also denounced the poor quality of the projects produced by workers employed under the program.
Brijesh Pandey, an anti-graft campaigner, recently claimed that he has tracked how ongoing scams divert a quarter of the program’s funds. For Surjit Bhalla, a prominent Indian economist, corruption appears to be even worse; he has recently estimated that around two-thirds of the program’s funds are squandered.
While there is some evidence that the program has improved some rural lives – 100 million rural Indians have opened bank accounts so that they can receive their wages, dietary habits are changing, more land is coming under cultivation, etc. – it is in major need of repair.
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