CHENNAI: Rural Tamil Nadu
may finally be catching up with its urban counterpart on women’s
liberation. Data put out by the central government in the Economic
Survey shows that the state ranks second in employing maximum number of
women under the rural job scheme — MNREGS.

In 2011-12, more than 73.3% of women in rural Tamil Nadu were employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), second only to Kerala where 92.7% women were employed.

Experts, however, said the numbers are rising due to growing unemployment
in rural areas. “There are not many men left in villages anymore,” said
Sheelu, president of a women’s collective. “Most of them have migrated
to cities in order to try their luck at higher paying jobs at
construction sites and other forms of unskilled labour. So, in the
villages, it is mostly women and elderly who sign up for MNREGS work,” she said.

Arupathy Kalyanam, general secretary of Federation of Farmers in
Cauvery Delta districts, said, “When men take to drinking and idling all
through the day, women have no choice but to sign up for this job.
Having said that, it is also true that the main reason men don’t take up
any rural job because they get paid a minimum of Rs 300 if they take up
other jobs, whereas under MNREGS, they get paid only Rs 132.”

On the other hand, MNREGS is the only job opportunity where men and
women get paid equally. While the pay given may be lower for men than
private jobs, women get paid more in MNREGS than in other jobs. “That’s a
primary reason for more women signing up for this scheme. Moreover, the
work is light; they can leave for work at 10am and return home by 2pm,”
said Sheelu.

But Sheelu said MNREGS work in Tamil Nadu, though
employing more people, is not as productive as other states,
particularly Kerala. “In Kerala, they have significantly increased their
agriculture productivity through this scheme,” she said. “Kerala pays
them remuneration for working in their own or others’ fields as well as
creating water harvesting tanks in government land. In Tamil Nadu, it’s
mostly confined to digging work.”

In Tamil Nadu, MNREGS has
resulted in shortage of labour in farm lands during harvest season.
“Labourers demand higher pay from farmers than what they get under the
MNREGS scheme,” said Kalyanam.