As the UPA's flagship initiative in the social sector, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), faces allegations of misuse, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has decided to conduct its own independent audit of the scheme.

New rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has, however, taken up as challenge on how to synchronise the employment guarantee programme with the ground realities and prevent the leakages at the implementation level in districts.

The NHRC is conducting a review of MGNREGS (as well as the National Rural Health Mission and Integrated Child Development Scheme) to report to the UN Human Rights Commission in 2012 as its officials says "it is important to do an audit of what impact the flagship schemes have had on the well-being of the poor as there is growing evidence of diversion of
funds meant for these schemes."

The MGNREGS guarantees 100 days of work to anybody coming forward in villages for the manual work, but the average number of days of employment under the scheme has been 47 and hence the NHRC wants to explore if there is leakage of the funds or denial of the commitment
made by the government in the Act.

Big farmers are exploiting the employment guarantee scheme to send off its farm labour to draw wages from the government whenever not required on the farms in the same manner the textile industry kept 30 percent surplus staff to get their mills running and getting them paid through the Employees' State Insurance (ESI) scheme.

On top of it, they are now putting pressure on the government to suspend the MGNREGS during the peak farming periods of sowing and harvesting to ensure they do not have to pay high wages to the farm labour. The labourers in rural areas prefer to work under the scheme that pays them more and that too without putting in the hard 12 hours plus labour on the fields.

The government cannot issue any order officially to shut down works under the scheme as the law binds it not to deny employment to anybody turning up for work, so the rural development ministry has "informally" asked the states to suspend these works during sowing, harvesting and transplantation.

The state governments too are exploiting the scheme to pressurise the ministry again and again to match the wages under the scheme with the minimum wages statutorily notified in their states. They first revise the minimum wages and then seek revision of the wages under the scheme.

Only last week, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal met Ramesh and demanded that the daily wage under the scheme be raised to Rs 200 as the present wage fixed for Punjab under the sheme is Rs 133 per day does not match the minimum wage fixed by his government at Rs 153.81 without meals.

Ramesh had tough time to explain to him that the scheme is not to provide the minimum wage but a guarantee of wage to persons not getting any employment or wage otherwise. He is already examining the problem. His predecessors raised the wage under the scheme above the minimum wage in many states because of such pressure as it is resulting in the non-availability of the labour for the agricultural works.

For instance, Punjab's neighbour Haryana has fixed the minimum agriculture wage at Rs 167 per day while it has compelled the centre to fix the MGNREGS wage at Rs 179 per day. There are many states where the farm labour is not easily available because of the wages under the scheme being higher than the minimum wage rates.

The MGNREGS wage rate in some such states, with the minimum wages in brackets, is: Uttar Pradesh Rs 120 (Rs 100), Madhya Pradesh Rs 122 (Rs 110), Orissa Rs 125 (Rs 90), Bihar Rs 120 (Rs 109), West Bengal Rs 130 (Rs 96), Assam Rs 130 (Rs 87) and Tamil Nadu Rs 119 (Rs 85).

There are, however, other states where the scheme wage is lower than the minimum wage, prompting NGOs to accuse the government of perpetuating forced labour in clear violation of its own laws on the minimum wages.

The centre had, in fact, tried to freeze the scheme wage at Rs 100 per day across the country through a notification in January 2009 but it had to withdraw it under protest from the states and the NGOs that it was unjust as the wages varied from state to state and there can not
be a uniform wage all over India.

The People's Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) went to the extent of accusing the centre for use of  Section 6(1) to delink MGNREGS wages from the Minimum Wage Act as "not just bad in law but also immoral in so far as it seeks to lower the real wages of the lowest
end of workers in the wage hierarchy."