National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme: An Overview
Dr. Saumitra Mohan

National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA) has been in operation for over four years and is being implemented in all the districts of this country. NREGA has turned out to be one of the most fascinating schemes launched by the State, generating lots of expectations because of the success story it has turned out to be.

Many executional problems and criticisms of certain aspects of the scheme notwithstanding, NREGA is the flagship scheme which has become the principal vehicle for extension of government benefits to the unemployed masses of this country. The changes in the quality of people’s life could be easily noticed in the countryside as also the massive infrastructures created under the scheme. The purchasing power generated has also created positive spin offs and multiplier effects for the economy as a whole.

However, the programme does require some structural and conceptual modifications to be better able to realise its objectives in the light of experience gained during its operation over the years. It is very well known that almost the districts across the country have not been able to harness the scheme uniformally as the performance varies from state to state. Not only this, none of the districts could realise the target of providing 100 days of employment to all the job card holders even though financial allocations for the programme have never been a constraint.

It is argued that NREGA being a demand-driven scheme, the emphasis should be on provisioning of employment to those demanding work rather than on expenditure of fund allotted. But the fact remains that there are still hundreds of thousands of people in need of work in this country. It is felt that the implementing agencies i.e. district administration and various line departments could be and need to be more proactive in reaching out to the people needing work through better ‘information-education-awareness’ (IEC) programme. Many people still do not know that they can rightfully demand work under NREGA and shall be paid an ‘Unemployment Allowance’ in case of failure to provide the same within 15 days of demanding work.

A regional variation in terms of utilisation of allotted amount has been observed as some states have availed of larger amounts compared to many others. Many states including Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have done exceedingly well in terms of fund utilisation and number of schemes executed. The same has resulted in creation of massive purchasing power of the local people in those states, while many other states have also started catching up, West Bengal being one of them.

If still many people do not come forward to do work under NREGA, the reason for the same is said to be the availability of work at higher wages in the private sectors than the one provided under NREGA, resulting in less utilisation of the allotted funds. This explanation may be tenable for the relatively developed states or for the urban areas even in the backward states, but definitely not for the rural and underdeveloped areas in states like Bihar, Jharkhand or Uttar Pradesh. These states definitely should have been able to utilise more money providing more number of employment than they have been able to do so far.

One feels that as the Indian economy grows at the sizzling rate of over seven per cent, there shall be more people attracted to work at the more attractive market wage rates than the minimum wage ranging from 75 to 140 as provided under NREGA. Since no state has been able to provide hundred days of employment to all its citizens, there is definitely a need to take the required corrective measures to reach the said target.

In fact, at this stage of the scheme, it is advisable that we should get more daring and remove the ceiling of 100 days and make it a completely demand driven employment guarantee scheme to be available throughout the year for as many person-days as might be demanded. At least, the individual cap of 100 days per household should be removed. This would allow the individual district to go on providing work to individual household beyond 100 days’ ceiling. It would also enable them to utilise their own projected quota of man-days calculated against the number of existing household for that particular district.

With states unable to realise even 100 days of employment, the drain on government resources is not going to be something beyond its reach. This is more so when more work at higher wages are likely to be available in the private sector in times to come, given the way our economy seems to be performing. With India being one of the demographically young countries, more people are likely to be in the productive age groups meaning thereby they shall all be need to be provided with work. Hence, the need to modify the minimum number of mandays’ stipulations as envisaged in the Act at the moment.

Knowing that employment would be available for asking in the villages itself, the wage labourers will be less motivated to head towards the urban areas for seeking wage employment thereby reducing migration from village to cities. The same shall also reduce pressure on urban amenities and infrastructures. As a result, there is likely to be enough work left for the urban workers. As there shall be less number of persons competing for work in the urban areas, it is likely that the urban wage labourers would get higher and more rewarding wages. It is felt that the same reduces the need for the government to formulate any such wage employment guarantee programme for the urban workers.

The objective of the scheme includes not only provisioning of guaranteed employment in the rural areas to discourage rural-urban migration, but also to create gainful assets in the countryside. It is, therefore, advisable for the government to keep revising the minimum wages from time to time to reflect the market wages as also to diminish attraction of higher wage employment s as might be available in the urban areas. If this does not happen, people would not feel encouraged to stay back in the villages to work for NREGA schemes thereby reducing the opportunities to create basic amenities and civic infrastructures in the rural areas.

It is felt by many that NREGA being a demand driven programme, people should be willing to do the work at the government approved rates, which is the minimum wage sufficient to sustain a household per day. If the people are getting work at higher wages elsewhere, they should go ahead and do it. This would result in saving of government money which can be better utilised for implementation of other ongoing welfare programmes run by the government including NREGA as well as for undertaking more material-intensive schemes.

During rainy season and other such busy seasons which may vary from state to state, people get higher wages in the rural areas itself thereby leaving very few volunteers for wage employment works in the countryside thereby resulting in less utilisation of the NREGA money. But one would say that less or more utilisation of NREGA allotment should not be a criterion to judge the success of the programme. Less utilisation may also mean that there is less demand for such work in that particular area. This should actually be seen as a development indicator as that means people are getting work at higher wages elsewhere, thereby reducing dependence on government to provide such wage employment.

However, one does find it surprising when one sees that work demanded is significantly less even in those areas where people living below the poverty line are more than the usual and are still not demanding work under NREGA. It feels more surprising when such people keep sitting idle without doing any work, while plenty opportunities could be created under NREGA for not only providing them with work, but also for creating productive assets in the countryside resulting in enhancement of basic quality of life for the inhabitants.

So, it does feel that there has not been done enough ground work for creating awareness about the programme. It has been observed that people are still not aware of the fact that they can demand work under NREGA as a matter of their right. Most of them are still not aware of their right to demand unemployment allowance as a result of implementing agency’s failure to provide the work within the statutory fifteen days of the receipt of petition demanding such a wage employment. The necessary allocations for such IEC exercises also remain unutilised in a good number of cases.

Surprisingly, unemployment allowance paid so far anywhere in the country is a very negligible amount of the total expenditure. The reason proffered for the same is provisioning of job within the statutory 15 days which is not the case. Actually, many implementing agencies have mastered the art of refusing unemployment allowance by not issuing the signed receipt for the applications demanding job. The payment of unemployment allowance is not only a charge on the local government, but also means the failure of the implementing agency to provide job within 15 days.

In case of such a failure, the officers and staff members concerned are supposed to be penalised if responsibility is fixed. Hence, the penchant for avoiding payment of unemployment allowances. There have reportedly been regular failures on the part of the many executing agencies to provide the demanded work within fifteen days, thereby defeating the very objective of NREGA. Not only this, no government official has yet been penalised for having failed to realise this programme objective notwithstanding there being the provision for the same.

Under NREGA, there is an in-built mechanism to check corruption and leakage of government money by means of better supervisory and monitoring arrangements. The same is supposed to be ensured by way of regular monitoring, field visits, muster roll checking by public, wide publicity of the details of the work being done or already done through an information board and other social auditing measures by the beneficiaries and other members of the society. The muster rolls are supposed to be publicly read to ward off corruption. However, the same is not being done regularly, thereby giving rise to suspicion of foul play. The provision of keeping an account of job demanded and provided through the specially designed individual job cards carrying photographs of the household members is also supposed to be a major anti-corruption tool.

However, it was believed that these very arrangements were reasons for a general apathy initially among the programme implementing agencies to implement the scheme effectively as there was almost negligible scope for siphoning of government money as was available earlier during the previous wage employment schemes including Swarnjayanti Gram Rojgar Yojna (SGRY) days.

But as they say, human ingenuity knows no bounds. The vested interests immediately discovered newer ways to sabotage the programme and got onto the gravy train. If some newspaper reports are to be believed, not only many fake job cards have come to notice of the monitors, but also there have been many reports where it has been found that implementing agencies or locally dominant factions have got a good number of job cards deposited in their custody and are using the same for nefarious purpose of minting money illegally.

Reports of preparation of cooked-up muster rolls without execution of any work have also come to notice, not to speak of many other known ways of making money. Not only this, employment to job card holders is still being given more as an obligation than as a matter of right. It is complained that the site selection for the schemes is often politically motivated. Usually, those areas are alleged to be preferred for NREGA works which are under control of the locally dominant factions, and not those as are populated by the supporters other than the locally dominant factions. It has also been alleged that the locally dominant party often uses the scheme to oblige its supporters, thereby giving a miss to the workers who are opposition followers.

It has been alleged that by means of fake cards, the vested interests have ensured siphoning of government money by making false entries into the muster roll and the daily attendance sheet. It has also been complained that job cards have not been issued to all those who wanted it and applied for it, but only to those who are loyal to the locally dominant party/faction or could grease some palms. The practice of getting a cut out of the labour wages of workers has also come to the notice and has been reported in the press. With regular monitoring, supervision and participatory social audit, scope for such shenanigans have been reduced considerably.

Also, the wage is supposed to be paid as per the quantum of work done by the individual labourers. However, the same has been noticed to be paid at a flat rate irrespective of the efficiency or work quantum standards in some of the cases, thereby rewarding a hare and a tortoise equally, something which goes against the purported objective of the scheme. The initial idea was that those working harder with higher productivity should be able to earn higher wages under the scheme. At many of the places, officials have pointed to the practical constraint of continuing with the ‘flat rate wage payment’ as differentiated payment creates discontentment among the workers.

Again, the workers have often unfairly refused to work beyond a few hours or at the pre-determined wage on various pretexts. This is simply because NREGA being a government scheme, they would not like to work harder and would like to just have their wages without putting in the requisite labour for a requisite output. At least, that is what has come to be heard by the implementing agencies at some places. But thankfully such instances are only few and far between.

Also, the basic work site amenities as are supposed to be there as per the programme guideline are often not found to be available. The provisioning of a crèche for children of working women, provisioning of the first aid boxes or potable water at the work sites are still not seen at most of the places. The stock argument proffered is that people feel that employment created through such works are less strenuous and villagers object to the fact that some people can earn their wages without putting in any hard labour.

If at all such amenities are provided, they are only to comply with the guideline rather than to fulfil the real spirit behind the provision. What they fail to realise is that such works can accommodate not only the physically handicapped people, but the same works can be rotated among the beneficiaries, if the handicapped or such other people are not readily available.

The signboard giving details of the ongoing or completed NREGA works is also found missing at many of the sites and is often put up without much details. However, the absence of the information board giving scheme details says something about the intentions of the implementing agencies, the motives being pre-empting people to question the quality and quantity of the works done. But such an argument does not stand in this age of Right to Information when any and every information can be accessed by way of the rights created under the said Act.

Several suggestions are being made to modify and improve NREGA further. It is felt by many that the material-wage ratio of 40-60 should be hiked to be 50-50 and this ceiling should be flexible enough to be applicable only at the state level so as to make allowance for taking up bigger and better schemes. The use of machineries should be made more flexible than it is admissible now though the same should be explicitly linked to facilitating the works and without compromising the generation of more mandays under NREGA.

Again, individual benefit schemes (IBS) have been allowed for weaker sections/marginal/small farmers for the permissible schemes under NREGA. Such schemes include conversion of wasteland/uncultivable/undulating land into cultivable land, roof-top water harvesting structures, construction of dug-wells, soil conservation, excavation of pond/water harvesting structures, social forestry schemes, watershed development schemes, construction of irrigation channels and some other schemes.

Many states have done exceedingly well while many other states have a long way to go on this count. One feels that there is a need to move methodically with regards to the implementation of IBS under NREGA as the same shall not only result in creation of more mandays in the under/undeveloped areas, but shall also create productive assets in the countryside. The same is likely to have immense multiplier effects. Timely identification of beneficiaries and creation of model scheme banks shall go a long way.

Again, there is a lot of scope for convergence or dove-tailing of NREGA with other schemes/programmes implemented by the line departments. If converged with other cognate schemes, the same shall help in more employment generation. It shall also result in improvement in the quality of schemes executed as the pool of resources available shall increase manifold through such convergence.

Convergence with Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) shall be another area requiring attention of the policy makers. As is known, TSC is one of the flagship schemes of the Government. However, the same has not been in a very good shape in many parts of the country. Even at the places where sanitary toilets have been constructed, they are not being used by the beneficiaries for different reasons including the one relating to the quality of the toilet constructed if feedback from the beneficiaries are to be relied upon. The main problem against the extant model is need of lot of water for flushing the night-soil which becomes more acute in the water-deficient areas. As the new model envisages use of ceramic pan in stead of a concrete one, water requirement could be greatly reduced.

Now that we are undertaking several individual benefit schemes (IBS) under schemes like NREGA, one feels that the convergence between the two (i.e. NREGA and TSC) can do wonders for both the development programmes, particularly TSC. Since now we allow expenditure upto a maximum of Rs. 150,000 for an IBS under NREGA for the small/marginal farmers, the dove-tailing of the schemes can do wonders to TSC, a scheme critical to the basic health and hygiene in the countryside.

Under the proposed convergence programme, people could be encouraged to contribute their share (Rs. 300/BPL household Rs. 2200 scheme subsidy and Rs. 2500/APL household) and then the rest could be contributed out of NREGA, thereby greatly encouraging people to opt for construction of sanitary toilets in their premises. Such models are not only more durable, they shall also need less water for flushing the night-soil. The total cost of a sanitary toilet under the proposed convergence may be around Rs. 6500. It is hoped that with proper IEC (Information, Education and Communication) campaign, the said convergence can do a world of good to our sanitation programme.

We are hopeful that this model of sanitary toilets when integrated with the IBS under NREGA has the possibility of becoming quite popular and could realize the objectives of the total sanitation campaign. This small piece of change to be effected through NREGA funds (if allowed) could go a long way in ensuring better health and hygiene in our countryside, not to speak of the possibility of unleashing immense opportunities for employment generation.

The administration of NREGA can improve further with a dedicated Programme Management Unit (envisaged, but still not done at many places) at all the levels including districts, blocks and Gram Panchayats. There is also a need for proper utilisation of the six per cent contingency provided for provisioning of the requisite infrastructures and manpower required for better programme implementation. Fund flow to various programme implementing agencies (PIAs) has to improve with proper coordination among the District Programme Management Unit, banks, post offices and all other concerned.

Newer NREGA schemes should be taken up. Such schemes may include solid waste management, more IBSs, drainage system, construction of model houses (of specific value a la IAY), sanitary toilets, kitchen gardens, rural hats, repair and maintenance of government building including construction of boundary walls. Self help groups (SHGs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) need to be involved in a huge way in various ways in implementations of the schemes including monitoring, work measurement and social auditing of the scheme.

Approved and vetted shelf of schemes should be ready for better and faster implementation of the NREGA schemes. Also, there is a need for the proper planning for all the seasons of the year. Still, the focus seems to be on expenditure of maximum money under NREGA but as it is a demand-driven scheme, the focus should be to generate employment for the unemployed to prevent them from emigrating to the urban areas while also creating valuable assets in the countryside.

If NREGA has to be successful in realising its programme objectives, then these concerns and problems, as mentioned above, need to be addressed sooner rather than later. One just hopes that with regular monitoring, social auditing and proper accounting coupled with some positive changes required in the light of experience gained during its operation over the years, NREGA can really become an effective answer to many of the problems for India’s poor masses.