National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

Scene 1 : The railway station at a Punjab sub city which till a few years ago was crowded with the migrants (mostly from UP & Bihar) wear a deserted look and there are farmers rub shoulder with each other to get maximum labourer  out of the available limited supply. Local farmers have camps set at the railway stations which operate 24×7 in this harvesting season and recruitment process which can teach many bytes to many HR executive of renowned MNCs.

There is mad rush to get these labours in their camp and the recruitment process starts 2-3 stations before the destination station which recruitment agents of farmer boar

d and try to hire as many as labours even before train reaches the destination and at wages 20-30 % higher than what was there last season. Despite of all this, farmers still find difficult to  get the required number of labourers required for the harvesting this season. Seasonal wages have increased from a mere Rs 700 to Rs 2,000-Rs 2,500 per acre, in just about two years — Reason NREGA

Scene 2 : 2 coolers doing their best to keep  a 20 x 18 room cool and keep the 4 men at ease sit around the lavish fare on the table, catching the sensational Cricket Match on TV while a clean bed with foam  awaits them for the night rest in a wider room which is equipped with Color TV, Fridge & Water filter

To surprise of many  it’s a labour camp in the heart of rural Punjab, where  pampering  of laboureres  are quite evident to ensure their commitment to the farmer for whole season. Labour poaching which was quite unheard in this trade has become nightmare for the bigger farmers who make all efforts  to shield their labourer in fear of losing them to other farmers at higher wages. The rich and sffluent Punjabi farmer, who had extra supply of labours from villages of central India to work on their fields, now has a tough competitor — the NREGA.

Scene 3 : A remote village in Bihar, a four year child plays with his father , Narendra Roy,  affectionately sitting on his abdomen while the father titillates her in a quite evening. She laughs in full volume and the joy can be seen on the whole family of seven people. This is quite unlikely scene as this sight was beyond imagination as Narendra had hardly stayed in his village for several years and had works tirelessly as a migrant labour in different parts of the country. Today he has more avenues near his village and he is very happy, after all who wants to work miles away from the home when one can find better opportunity back home —- and credit again goes to NREGA.

Basics Of NREGA

The flagship program of UPA I launched in 2005, MGNREGA (renamed on 2^nd OCT 2009 on Mahatma Gandhi)has proved to be a grand success across the country. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is unique and first Indian job guarantee scheme which provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory  minmum of Rs.100 per day. The Central government outlay for scheme is Rs. 39,100 crores ($8 billion) in FY 2009-10.

This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around

one-third of the stipulated work force is women. In independent India, never had been such a program which ensures employment in the poor ha

nd. Under the MGNREGA the Central Government meets the cost towards the payment of wage, 3/4 of material cost and some percentage of administrative cost. State Governments meet the cost of unemployment allowance, 1/4 of material cost and administrative cost of State council. Since the State Governments pay the unemployment allowance, they are heavily incentivized to offer employment to workers.

NREGA has changed lives across the country and fortunately the beneficiary had been the one who have always been on the lower end of the ladder. The recent economic survey released in Feb’10 estimates the no. of households benefited from the program to be 4.51 Crore which is quite impressive figure. As against the budgetary outlay of Rs 39,10

0 crore for 2009-10 for NREGS, an amount of Rs 24,758.50 crore has been released to the states and union territories till December 2009, the Survey, tabled in Parliament, said.

“Out of the 182.88 crore person days created under the scheme during this period, 29 per cent and 22 per cent were in favour of Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes population respectively, and 50 per cent in favour of women,” it added.

Under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), over 36.78 lakh self-help groups had been formed and 1.33 crore ‘swarozgaris’ have been assisted with a total investment of Rs 30,896.08 crore.

The government has also utilised Rs 363.12 crore till December 2009 under the Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana. A total of 28,613 urban poor have been assisted to set up individual enterprises.

The government had

fixed the total budgetary outlay at over Rs 70,000 crore for all employment generation schemes during the fiscal, the Survey said.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 covered 200 districts-known as Phase I districts, and in 2006-07 this was extended to cover 130 additional dis

tricts known as the Phase II districts.

During 2006-07 againstthe total available funds of Rs. 12073.56 Crore with the states, Rs. 8823.36 Crore was utilised. 1The average fund utilisation per district was Rs. 44.12 Crore in 2006-07. For 2007-08 the government made a budget provision of Rs 12000 Crore. Out of this Rs. 8303.82 Crores have been released up to 14th November 2007. Out of this, Rs. 5365.99 Crore have been released to the Phase I 200 districts and Rs. 2937.92 Crore have been released to the Phase II 131 districts.

During 2006-07, 2.12 Crore households had demanded employment, out of which 2.10 Crore households were provided employment. During the year 90.51 Crore person days of employment was provided under the programme. Averages of 45.2 lakh person days of employment per districts have been generated. Out of total 90.51 Crore person days, the share of Scheduled Castes was

22.95 Crore person days (25.36%) and Scheduled Tribes was 32.99 (36.45%) constituting a total of 55.94 Crore person days for SCs/STs which comes to about 62%. As per the NREGA, the share of women person days should be 1/3rd and the same was 36.79 Crore person days, which is about 41%. During 2007-08 (up to September 2007), 1.97 Crore households have demanded employment and 1.88 Crore households have been provided employment. A total of 56.14 Crore person days of employment has been . Centre for Science and Environment:

The Union Rural Development Ministry generated under the Programme. Out of this, the share of Scheduled Castes is 14.70 Crore person days (26.18%) and Scheduled Tribes is 18.44 Crore person days (32.84%) constituting a total of 33.14 Crore person days, which is about 59.03% of total. The share of women is 26.61 Crore person days, which is 47.40%.

Corruption In NREGA

The success of NREGA is not without rider, like any other economic plan NREGA is also not free of corruption & irregularities as from many parts of th

e country cases of corruption have been reported. The study, sponsored by the rural development ministry, was initiated in September 2008.

The research team visited Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. They collected secondary material and also elicited information from different stakeholders like the ‘gram pradhan’ and beneficiary workers, besides interviewing implementing agencies and personnel. The study team found that in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Bihar, the job cards were not in the possession of workers but with the sarpanch and other panchayat functionaries, while in many cases job cards were found to be fudged with fake entries. “In most of the cases, job cards were found in the possession of sarpanch or other panchayat functionaries. In many cases, it was found that job cards were fudged and fake entries made,” it said.

This is really difficult to check corruption in such a big implementation however govt has been on right track in ensuring benefit reach to the nee

ded one. The government

is likely to introduce biometrics cards and electronic attendance systems from next fiscal to plug the leakages in scheme NREGA, even as it looks to step up allocation for the scheme sharply to Rs 45,000 crore. States such as Ra

jasthan have already experimented with biometrics card system to prevent leakage and the Centre now is keen to unveil it on all-India basis.

ILO on NREGA

The UPA’s flagship programme NREGA has got the thumbs up from the ILO, which has said that had it not been for the scheme, t

he labour class in India would have been badly hit by the recession. Lauding the NREGA that guarantees hundred days of employment to the rural work force, the ILO in its latest report has said that the social protection scheme “stands to offset the potenti

al shock to the poor in this time of recession”.

“The scheme has brought benefit to thousands of families since its implementation,” the report said.

The flagship programme of the government launched in 2006 has provided employment to more than 4.49 crore households so far. It was allocated Rs 16,000 crore in 2008-09.

Future of NREGA

The return of UPA govt in 2009 has authenticated the success of NREGA as it was massive poll plank of UPA in

rural areas and it got applause from the masses who have rarely been benefited from such a large scale from a social scheme. Having got the encouraging response from the masses UPA govt is all set to make the program more viable in long run.

NREGA had been a factor in reducing migration to large extent in may part of the country. In many rural parts of Rajasthan, Chattishgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal etc  NREGA serves as an effective safety net for the unemployed, especially during years of famine and drought, supplementing household incomes and reducing migration to cities by villagers in search of work. It helps the rural poor economically by not just putting cash in their hands, but also helping them create sustainable assets.

Amarjeet Singh Rathore