The government?s ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme is turning out to be more of a predicament than a boon, at least in some villages of Punjab. For instance, in Hoshiarpur district, that falls under the NREGA scheme, sarpanchs or village heads are facing problems in implementing the scheme ranging from shortage of suitable work to handling very old people demanding work.
Satpal Kaur, a lady sarpanch of village Bassi, says very old people turn up for unskilled strenuous manual labour. ??It is almost inhuman to make them do such work, though we cannot refuse work to anyone asking for it under the scheme,?? rues Kaur.
She says many-a-times she gets requests from people as old as 65 years, or even older, for work under the scheme that guarantees 100 days of employment to adult members in a household. ??What should I do in such a situation? It is not clear. I think the government should specify an age limit,?? she suggests.
This is not the only problem. Another issue that sarpanchsare grappling with is the refusal of many people to complete the allotted work and still demanding full payment at the end of the day.
??There are people who do not complete the work given to them but demand full payment. When I ask them to complete the work, they fight with me and allege that I am harassing them against which they will complain to the administration,?? says Sarvan Ram, sarpanch of village Bilaspur.
Refusal of work is not possible under the Act and the government has specified strict rules against it. The Act says employment should be provided to a person within 15 days of his/her submitting an application or from the day work is demanded and, if not possible, s/he has to be provided unemployment allowance.
This leads to another problem that appears to be most acute. ??We do not have enough work and panchayat land for carrying out NREGA work,?? says Ram. The scheme lists creation of durable assets as one of its important objectives and permits works centered around water conservation; drought-proofing, afforestation; renovation of traditional water bodies; land development; flood control and rural connectivity.
However, sarpanchssay for a developed district like Hoshiarpur, not much such scope is left. “Also, the idle land that panchayats have can fetch us better money through leasing instead of using it for NREGA, where many times we carry out work just for the heck of it. How many projects do we create out of nowhere?” he asks.
The village heads also complain that they are overburdened. ??We have to ensure maintenance of official records, birth and death certificates, pensions, mid-day meals, welfare schemes, RTI etc. And now NREGA. It is really too much work for us,?? says Ram, who gets a monthly salary of Rs 600.