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NREGS – Who’s Responsible?
By Indra
May 21, 2008 |
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National
Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, NRGES, is a
real great visionary project for a country with
80% population earning less than Rs 20 a day. It
provides an ensured earning for at least one
member of the household for 100 days a year.
Interestingly, it is not a charity or dole.
Wages are paid against the physical work done.
Perhaps this is the best social security
mechanism created for a poor country and
provides a right to work and earn to live. Only
a genuinely needy man would labour under an
Indian summer sun and bitter winter for 60
rupees or so a day. And according to Aruna Roy,
‘the earlier practice of paying without making
any distinction between those who worked and
those who didn’t, has been dropped. Workers are
paid exactly on the basis of the actual work
done by them.’ Further, if the government fails
to give work, the individual beneficiary gets
also entitled to receive a daily unemployment
allowance. There couldn’t have been a better
scheme for rural India with a large number of
unskilled, illiterate, and socially deprived
population. The ‘Economist’ recently came out
with a report ‘Shoveling for their supper’ and
called it the world’s biggest public-works
project.
The scheme’s prime mission was to create an
employment to a large number of people- at least
one member of each willing family out of needy
lot. Another mission was to create permanent
assets in rural India to improve the
productivity of the farming and quality of life.
Assets may be projects related to water
conservation, drought proofing, creation or
renovation of traditional water bodies,
plantation and forestation, land development,
flood protection, or roads for improved rural
connectivity. Ideally, it is for the community
affected such as a village or a Panchayat who
must identify the assets required or the
maintenance work for the existing assets.
However, a technical group must validate it and
coordinate with the overall requirement of the
region.
Has the scheme, that started with only 200 of
the poorest districts of the country has gone to
all the 604 districts, succeeded in its mission?
There are different opinions.
According to a recent CAG report, barely 3.2
percent of the 50 million registered households
could get the full 100 days employment between
February 2006 and March 2007. The average
employment provided under the scheme was just 18
days. However, the ministry contended that 21
million families had been provided work for an
average of 44 days and that 2.2 million families
had been given work for their full entitlement
of 100 days.
On the assets created, 57% were in water
conservation, 13% in irrigation, 17% in roads,
and 14% for land development. Of the water
conservation works, 347,000 or 43% of the total
value were for water harvesting, 13% or 98,000
for water bodies such as ponds and 20% to
irrigate land owned by SC/ST’s. There were
113,000 tree plantation works and 206,000 for
roads. An environmentalist has called it “the
world’s largest ecological regeneration
programme.” I wish it could be believed without
any question?
The ‘Economist’ observes rightly, “Enthusiasm
for NREGS among state governments has been
patchy, with some of India's poorest and most
populous states, such as Bihar and Jharkhand,
slow to adopt it.” Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh
have done wonderfully well. Even Aruna Roy
confirms that. I wish the politicians wouldn’t
have used NREGS for their politics. I really get
depressed when I find Raghuvansh Prasad Singh
and Nitish Kumar fighting. Working together they
could have used NRGES to wipe out the misery of
millions of deprived people of Bihar.
I wrote on the subject since the scheme was
getting discussed. I appealed to make it free of
politics. Fortunately, the minister assigned
with the task was honest and dedicated to the
mission. Over the period, he initiated many
safeguards to make it more transparent and less
misused than its earlier predecessors. NRGES has
also used IT to bring in efficiency and
transparency. And the minister is also trying to
get help from all the IIMs and IITs for
improving upon the performance of NREGS. Latest
provision of the scheme is the opening of an
account in name of the beneficiary in the local
post office or bank and wages transferred
straight to the beneficiary's account. As
reported, ‘a staggering 16 million people
registered with NREGS now have bank accounts.’
Ultimately, all the 55 millions will be covered
by formal banking system.
Here is a scheme that provides a right for even
the most deprived one in the country to demand
work, earn his living, and avoid going empty
stomach to sleep. He must demand his right to
live an honourable life.
I wish one day every village will have a website
of its own and a rural knowledge centre. The
website will have all the information about the
NREGS along with many other information.
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Discussion on this topic is now
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