The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pointed out a number of anomalies in the UPA government?s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Still, the scheme has managed to touch and improve the lives of close to 5 crore rural people more effectively than most of the anti-poverty programmes in the country.
Providing at least 100 days of wage payment to each of the around 3 crore eligible families, NREGA (launched back in February 2006) has achieved moderate success in two of India?s largest states?Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Along with successes elsewhere, it has put the country on its way to eradicating acute poverty by 2015, as envisaged under the Millennium Development Goals.
With one of the biggest anti-poverty programmes in recent years, the UPA government has already spent more than Rs 40,000 crore in implementing NREGA, out of which more than Rs 25,000 crore has been paid as wage to those millions of manual workers who have been forced into migrating to cities or other prosperous areas of the country in search of livelihood as agriculture activities have failed to provide livelihood security.
?If labour shortage during peak agricultural season and rise in real time increase in minimum wage rates in the states are any indication, NREGA has empowered the rural areas positively,? Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, union rural development minister, said. The rural development ministry is the nodal department for implementing NREGA in all the 600 odd districts of the country.
According to data compiled by the rural development ministry, in states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Orissa, there has been a significant rise in prescribed daily wage rates given to agricultural labourers following the introduction of NREGA. The average daily manual wage has risen from Rs 65 two years back to Rs 85 at present. ?The states are forced to revise the prescribed daily wage rate as there has been acute shortage of labour in taking up agricultural activities specially during sowing and harvesting periods,? Rita Sharma, Secretary, ministry of rural development told FE.
CAG, which a few months back had slammed the manner in which NREGA was being implemented in the country ,had categorically accused it of poor record maintenance, delayed payments and non-payments of unemployment allowance. NREGA has since taken corrective steps towards stopping implementation malpractices.
NREGA has also initiated the world?s largest financial inclusion measure for providing poor people access to the formal banking system. The impact of this has yet to be assessed by experts in the field of financial management. But, as reported by FE earlier, close to 5 crore savings bank accounts have been opened with post offices and banks across the country just for the payment of wages under NREGA. The rural development ministry is urging states to speed up the opening of savings bank accounts so that cash payment of NREGA can be stopped. ?We have discussed the CAG?s observation of delay in wage payment and payment through bank accounts only would stop the problem,? Sharma said.
States like Andhra Pradsh, Karnataka, Uttaranchal, Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh have opened savings bank accounts for all the NREGA workers while others like Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have made ?substantial? progress in providing banking services to poor rural folks.
While the world debates the adverse impact of climate change, many rural development experts have been describing NREGA as a tool that can help mitigate this problem. According to the latest data, an amazing 20.44 lakh works mostly related to water conservation have been taken up under NREGA, out of which 7.16 lakh works have been completed. ?With such huge number of works focusing on conserving and preserving water, NREGA would definitely impact agricultural productivity in the long run,? Richard Mahapatra, a Delhi based development writer said.
On its parts, the rural development ministry has stated that an independent grievance redressal mechanism through Lok Adalats is under consideration. A national helpline to lodge complaints against corrupt practices is also operational. More than 83 lakh muster rolls have been verified and put in the dedicated website for the programme? http://www.nrega.nic.in, thus ensuring transparency. Close to 2 lakh independent social audits have been conducted across the country for ensuring that malpratices are minimised.
However, there are still many grey areas that would adversely impact the implementation of NREGA, which is seen as the last attempt to remove chronic poverty from the country. There is also a need for independent studies from reputed institutes to access the real impact and o expedite the completion of unfinished works. Whatever the cynics may say, there are indications that the mega job guarantee scheme has worked at least in some parts of the country. Time for the other states to realise its potential.
NREGA in a nutshell
Coverage?600 districts
Estimated expenditure till date?Rs 40,000 crore since February 2006
No of works taken up: 20.44 lakhs, No of works completed?7.16 lakhs
Performing states?Andhra Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand
Slow performing states?Bihar & Uttar Pradesh
Estimated banks and post office savings bank account opened (for wage payment)?5 crore
Impact?rise in prescribed daily agricultural wage rate across states and reports of distress migration going down in many states