Launched in February 2006, UPA government?s mega National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which for the first time guaranteed 100 days of manual labour to each rural household, continue to make news for all the right as well as wrong reasons. Initially launched in the 200 backward districts as identified by the Planning Commission, the impact of NREGA has been a mixed bag.

According to the ministry of rural development, the nodal agency in charge of implementation, a staggering 17.92 lakhs works mostly relating to water conservation and rural connectivity have been taken up in the rural hinder land. However, only about 46% or 8.24 lakh works have been completed till date.

Union minister for rural development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh recently said that more than Rs 20,000 crore has already been spent under NREGA. The rural development ministry had released Rs 8,640.86 crore and Rs 12,610.39 crore during 2006-07 and 2007-08 respectively.

However these statistics do not reveal the true picture. According the official data, mostly UPA?s main rival BJP ruled states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have been toppers in terms of expenditures of Rs 2,891 crore, Rs 1,477 crore and Rs 1,401.83 crore during the current fiscal while only the Congress ruled Andhra Pradesh figures amongst top performing states with an expenditure of Rs 2,083 crore during the current year.

The unique feature of the NREGA is that once the fund allocated do not get lapsed after the financial year is over as the scheme for the first time does not provide for any cap in expenditure.

What is surprising is the failures of the states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in fully utilising the opportunities provided by NREGA in creating productive assets at the village levels. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with large number of people under the below the poverty line (BPL), continue to ?under perform? with an expenditure of Rs 1,052 crore and Rs 1,898 crore respectively during the current year.

Even the performance of Orissa and Jharkhand are far from satisfactory. Orissa and Jharkhand have spent Rs 581 crore and Rs 1,062 crore respectively during the current year.

NREGA has been extended to all the 670 odds districts across the country with an estimated rural households of 45 million since April 1, 2008. Henceforth it will be the only operational wage employment programme in the country, having subsumed all other public wage programme like Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana, which was in operation for providing wage employment in rural areas and providing food and livelihood security for improving nutritional level.

According to the critiques, NREGA provides huge possibilities of making difference to the lives of 45 million rural households of the country. ??Over the two years that it has been in existence, NREGA has already created half-a-million assets and provided jobs to around 3% of India?s population,?? Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science & Environment, which recently carried out impact assessment of NREGA across 12 districts, said.

Although NREGA emphasizes on taking up nine types of works such as water conservation, renovation of traditional water bodies, drought proofing, rural connectivity etc, states have been allocating huge money towards works taken up under the category of ?other works?. The cumulative figure released by rural development ministry suggest that 53% of the works during 2007-08 was relating to water conservation and only 17% of works are related to rural connectivity. But the state specific figure analysed by CSE say that Andhra Pradesh alone accounted for 67% of works on water conservation during 2006-07, while during the same period Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Assam and Bihar devoted more money towards road connectivity.

According to another study conducted by Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), a NGO, majority of states have failed in providing mandatory 100 days of employment to each rural households. Even the government data collaborated the fact that only 44 persodays have been provided across the country to each rural households.

According to a rural development ministry official, states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which have used the Act towards creating necessary assets at the rural levels for regenerating rural economy have been successful in their approach. ??An excessive focus on employment generation has lead to creating non-durable assets which are of little importance to rural economy in many states,?? the official said. It is clear that NREGA is not jut short-term relief programme during drought or distress. It is programme for long-term relief against drought and boosting rural economy