MILINDO CHAKRAVARTI
THE National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA) is being extended to 130 new districts in
the country from the coming financial year. Two
hundred districts were brought under the purview of
the scheme last year. Now a total of 330 districts will be
covered by the scheme. The finance minister allocated
Rs 12,000 crores to ensure employment for 100 days a
year to at least one member of each of the families from
these identified districts, if they are willing to work at
the minimum wage prevailing in the state, and within 5
kms from their residences. In case they cannot be
employed, the state government is liable to compensate
them financially.
Last July, I wrote about Amar Singh from village Adori
located in Birsa block of Balaghat district, Madhya
Pradesh, Baria Bhikhiben Ramanbhai from village
Nadisar of Bhamariya Panchayat, Godhra block of Panchmahal district in
Gujarat and Anand Rao Sakharam Mankar, of village Kokebad (M) located in
the Bhadravati block of Chandrapur district in
Maharashtra.
Now it is almost a year that NREGA has been in force,
and Amar Singh, Baria Bhikhiben Ramanbhai and Anand
Rao Sakharam Mankar, have not been able to get employment
till March 12, 2007. In fact, no one from their villages
has been lucky enough to get such benefits. In
Balaghat block, out of 24,033 households and 72,523 persons
registered under the scheme from 58 villages in the
block, only one village – Chhapla – witnessed the creation
of employment to the tune of 1090 man days so
far. The rest of the villages did not record any employment.
(see http://nrega.nic.in)
The situation is far worse in the Bhadravati block of
Chandrapur district, Maharashtra. Neither Anand Rao
Sakharam Mankar, nor any one from his village was
offered employment. Out of the 12,900 households and
29,657 individuals who registered themselves to be considered
for the benefits under the scheme, only four
have been issued job-cards. Interestingly, two of them
are from the village of Anand Rao! The most baffling
finding, however, is that 160 man days of employment
generated so far have been offered to villages where no
job-cards have been issued till date, and no employment
has been generated in the villages where the four villagers
who had been issued job-cards, reside! As many as
701 individuals from 487 households demanded employment.
No employment has been offered in Bhikhiben’s village
from Panchmahal district, Gujarat, even though all
324 households from the village, comprising 880 willing
individuals, have been issued job-cards. In fact, the website
suggests that no one registered from this block
demanded employment and was even offered the same.
No activity under the scheme has been taken up across
the entire block under NREGA, according to the
scheme’s website.
A state-level analysis reveals the disparities in implementation
of the employment guarantee scheme. On the basis of information
provided at the NREGA website, which is the aggregation of information gathered
at the village level, around 65 per cent of the households registered have
been issued job-cards so far. Not one household has been registered yet in
Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Nagaland,
Punjab and Sikkim.
More than 87 per cent of the households registered for employment guarantee
are in the states of Orissa, MadhyaPradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh,
Maharashtra and West Bengal – perhaps after these states were identified as
being severely poverty stricken. Only 0.18 per cent of the households registered
could be provided with 100 man days of employment during 2006-07.
Surprisingly, only around 8.55 per cent of the registered households
demanded employment under the scheme. Orissa had the highest percentage
of demand for employment – a little over 28 per cent of those registered.
Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand followed. A major correction! A whopping 97.3 per cent of the households registered in Bihar demanded employment.
However, only 37 households have been registered so far, and to keep the
records straight, the powers that be ensured that all were issued job-cards!
About 89.25 per cent of the households in India that demanded employment
were offered so, even though the state-level performances vary widely –
from 97. 6 per cent in Orissa to a little less than 17 per cent in Haryana.
For those keen to have further analytical insight into the present status of
the scheme across the states, I reproduce the data (consolidated at the state
level) from the NREGA website. However, this is just the beginning of a fictitious
story. Data available from another page of the NREGA website downloaded
on the same day paints a very rosy picture about the scheme’s achievements.
The differences are significantly high. Which of these sets of information
are to be believed? Let us wait till the next issue.
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On the basis of information provided at the NREGA
website, around 65 per cent of households that
registered have been issued job-cards. Not one
household has been registered yet in Andhra Pradesh,
Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka,
Nagaland, Punjab and Sikkim.
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In the mean time, the NREGA website – www.nrega.nic.in -- has invited proposals from civil society groups “for undertaking the tasks of capacity-building of local rural communities to access their entitlements and assert their rights under NREGA in select NREGA districts. Organisations selected will be assigned a district each, and the tasks will have to be undertaken at the village level upwards to the district level for six months to begin with. The tasks to be undertaken will include:
● Social mobilisation and awareness generation through door-to-door contact campaigns, village conventions, personal contact programmes.
● Training of the NREGA workforce, members of village vigilance and monitoring committee, members of gram panchayat and gram rozgar sewak on NREGA procedures and their roles. |
● Enabling the local community to apply under NREGA for various entitlements
covered under its legal guarantee.
● Enabling the NREGA workforce to verify the benefits due to them, inter alia,
their muster rolls, job-card entries.
● Submitting reports as desired by the ministry.
As per the advertisement on the website, the proposals are expected to reach
JS Audhkhasi, Under Secretary (NREGA), Ministry of Rural Development (Room
No. 455) official within 15 days of the publication of the advertisement.
