Handbook on Rural Workers’ Rights under NREGA
The NTUI Handbook on Rural Workers’ Rights describes the procedures in relation to the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 and the Central Guidelines to it along with state rules wherever they are available.
The handbook is designed for implementing the strategy of NTUI to organise rural workers around NREGA. The NTUI strategy focuses on organizing to get employment and ensure wages to rural workers at the village level.
The process of guaranteeing employment as a legal right has been broken in modular steps. In each step, the handbook describes the specific procedure to follow the law and the guidelines and the action that unions need to take. Further it has been designed to create an information system that NTUI intends to build effectively to monitor the implementation at each level and struggle on the basis of legitimate information.
The Handbook will help in monitoring and implementing the legal rights of each individual in rural areas, adequacy of projects to provide employment guarantee to all households in the village and assess the state and central governments financial and administrative capacity to implement the Act in a state.
The handbook has built on a problem solving methodology and is designed to assess the learning from the process of organizing using the framework of NREGA, testing the assertions and the elements on an empirical basis.
The handbook has been developed to support the strategy of NTUI for organizing rural workers. It was discussed and validated at the workshop of affiliated rural and agricultural workers’ unions held on 7 and 8 June 2006. Further, it has been field tested in actual organizing. In particular it is an outcome of the efforts of District Labour Union (Karnataka), Gujarat Adivasi Sabha (Gujarat), Gramin Mazdoor Sabha (Gujarat), Gramin Mazdoor Union (U.P.), Pashchim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (West Bengal), Tamil Nadu State Construction Workers’ Union (Tamil Nadu), Tamil Nadu State General Workers’ Union (Tamil Nadu) and Unorganised Working Class Union (Kerala). We acknowledge the contribution of the office bearers and activists of these unions.
We also received valuable inputs from REACH (Karnataka), Plantation Working Class Union (Kerala), Rural People’s Sangam (Tamil Nadu) and Uplifitment of Rural Poor (Tamil Nadu). We also shared the manual with organisations connected with the Right to Work Campaign. In particular we thank Prof. Jean Dreze for his detailed written comments.
This manual would not have been possible but for the tireless efforts of the NTUI Research Unit. Dithhi Bhattacharya not just painstakingly waded through umpteen drafts of the Handbook but also tested it at every stage with the cooperation of NTUI affiliates in various parts of the country. Mohan Mani and Rosa Basanti fact checked and edited the Handbook. Prabhat Ranjan put in long hours long beyond his call of duty for the Hindi translation.
Gautam Mody
Secretary
New Delhi
2 November 2006
The entire contents of the handbook can be downloaded. Please see the link on the right.