Editorial: The need to revisit VB-G RAM-G

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued, on June 30, a gloomy rainfall forecast for July, the wettest and most important month of the southwest monsoon, and the new Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM-G), replacing the MGNREGS, took effect on July 1. The timing of the two events could not have been less propitious. One portends a severe curtailment of agricultural operations due to a probable rainfall deficit countrywide, and the other is designed to cut back funding for a welfare scheme of last resort for millions of landless farm workers. Together, they are likely to have a pincer effect on a very vulnerable section of the population.

According to IMD, rainfall in July is likely to be less than 94% of the long period average (LPA). Private weather agency Skymet too has forecast 95% of LPA for the month. Both forecasts agree that north, west and central India will likely bear the brunt of the deficit. Beyond July, the prospects are equally worrisome. The IMD is indicating that the drying effect of the El Niño phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean is likely to strengthen further in the later months of the monsoon, threatening drought-like conditions towards the close of this year and into the next.

The July forecasts follow a seriously bad June. The first month of the monsoon turned out to be the driest June in more than a decade, and the fifth driest since record-keeping began in 1901. Rainfall received was 39.8% below LPA, and that after a two-week delay in the arrival of the monsoon. This has impaired the replenishment of water sources across the country and slowed the planting of crops for the kharif harvest.

Signs of stress in the country’s farm system are already evident. Reports indicate that kharif delays are already putting rural incomes under pressure. In June, sowing operations in nine of the most important kharif states were below their long-term average. Operations in Tamil Nadu are reportedly 29% in deficit, Telangana 32%, Kerala 31%, Andhra Pradesh 15%, Karnataka 38%, and Maharashtra the worst-hit at 64%.

Landless farm labourers’ need for work is most urgent in the pre-monsoon months, and if agricultural operations are sluggish due to deficient or delayed rainfall, the stress is likely to continue longer into the season. If the El Niño forecast plays out this year, this stress can segue into the post-monsoon months and make for a year-long crisis for the rural poor.

It was to cope with such exigencies that the old MGNREGA was designed as a demand-driven scheme, not a centrally controlled, budget-capped programme as the VB-G RAM-G is. With states required to meet 40% of the expenditure, and most likely unable to, there is every danger that local administrations will run out of funds and shut down the work window rather than compulsorily match resources to demand as they were mandated to earlier.

There is a good case for the Centre to heed the alarms raised by several states on the shortcomings of VB-G RAM-G. Even BJP-ruled states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand are against the 60-40 funding pattern. At this juncture, the need for improvisation is obvious and irrefutable and sooner rather than later. So far, the Centre has decided to allow states that haven’t yet notified of the new rules to continue with the old system for six months. It must make more such interventions ahead of the gathering storm.