Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee act

1. By Rajnikant George Rasmi Kala Tirkey Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee act

2. Wage Employment Programs Historical Perspective • Maharashtra Model • Bureaucracy • Shortage of funds • Lack of right planning • Lack of local focus

3. NREGA objective • The objective of the Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

4. NREGA - Overview Salient Features • Employment to all those who are willing to work (100 days) • Unlimited supply of funds for this project • Free registration with a job guarantee within 15 days of application • At least 1/3 rd of the employees must be women • Fixed minimum wage rate and no upper limit • Weekly disbursement of wages and delays not beyond a fortnight

5. Objective of NREGA

6. Expectation from NREGA • PRIMARY √ supplement employment opportunity •auxiliary √ Regenerate natural resource base of rural livelihood for sustainable development • Process Outcomes √ Strengthen grass root processes of democracy √ Infuse transparency and accountability in governance

7. Key Processes of Implementation Application for job card Selection of works Approval of shelf of projects Verification Issue of job card Informing village PRI Demand for employment Acknowledgement of demand Preparation of estimates And approvals Work allocation Maintenance of muster roll Payment of wages

8. Other Institution mm Dist. Program co-coordinator Gram Sahbha Rural employment guarantee scheme Ministry of rural development Dist. Panchayat Program me Officer Central employment guarantee Council State employment guarantee council Intermediate Panchayat Others Gram panchyat

9. STAKEHOLDERS Key Stakeholders are: • Wage seekers • Gram Sabha • PRIs, specially the gram panchayat • Programme Officer at the block level • District Programme Coordinator • State Government • Ministry of Rural Development

10. Funds

11. Fund 2010-11 MGNREGA • Allocation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme raised to Rs 40,100 bn in FY10-11

12. Component of expenditure • Material cost • Expenditure on wage • Administrative cost × Participation of women

13. Regenerating natural resource base of rural livelihood

14. Capacity Building Focused on three components : • Information & knowledge (What to do ?) • Methods & techniques (How to do ?) • Motivation (Why to do) ? • Time bound Action Plan • Outcome : Effective & Efficient implementation • Work Planning & Execution • Participatory Decentralised Planning of works • Standard Check List for examination of AAP’s • Focuss on Natural Resource Management :

15. Transparency & Accountability • Social Audit : Soul of Empowerment & Guarantee Audit Forums Social Audit Manual • NGO’s being given a wider role • Two Model districts being setup • Social Audit completed in all the Panchayats • Social Audit by MKSS – A reputed NGO

16. NGO and MGNRGEA (social audit of NRGEA State of Rajasthan) • The social audits proposed that addressing basic issues : • adequate honorarium and allowance to elected representatives, • Increasing administrative, technical and managerial staff at the lowest level • Establishing responsibility for proper maintenance of records • Scope for possible monetary deviations and reduce the slack in implementation.

17. Contd.. • Transparency measures: labor and material • Muster rolls: reduced delays in wage payment and non-payment of wages • Large numbers of men and women have attended the public hearings held as part of the audits to testify against false records and register their discontent

18. Awareness Generation and Capacity Building on NREGS(CAPART) • Social mobilization and awareness generation through door to door contact campaign, village convention, personal contact programmes. • Training of NREGA workforce, members  of village vigilance and monitoring committee, members of Gram Panchayat and Gram RozgarSewak on NREGA procedure and their roles. • Enabling local community to apply under NREGA for various entitlements covered under its legal guarantee.      

19. Contd.. •  Enabling NREGA workforce to verify the benefits due to them, inter alia, their muster rolls, and job cards entries. •  Submitting reports as desired by the Ministry

20. Transparency • Documents : • (1) Job Cards ( in the custody of workers) • (2) Muster Rolls, • (3) Measurement Books and • (4) Asset Registers • Processes : • (1) Acceptance of employment application, • (2) Issue of dated receipts, • (3) Time bound work allocation and wage payment, • (4) Citizen Information Boards at worksites, • (5) Vigilance Monitoring Committees, • (6) Regular block, district and • state level inspections • (7) social audits • (8) MIS.

21. Jharkhand, is to plug loopholes in the system • In Haryana, women like Santosh told us that the Sarpanch who has to implement the work plan had been discouraging. He had also refused to mark their attendance or pay minimum wages. • In Jharkhand, one of the worst performing states, Chabutri Devi got her job card in January 2007 but all she has to show since then is just 22 days of work. Worse she has not been paid her wages. • Experts say the problem is an unstable political environment and the fact that implementing institutions like the Panchayati Raj are absent from the state.

22. Issues of NREGA • Lack of initiative on the part of Sarpanch and the TDOs • Lack of awareness at the Taluka and Village level despite intensive IEC activities • Failure on the part of District Administration to get the village plan implemented. • Lack of desire among the people to undertake NREGA works. • Non involvement of line Departments in implementation of NREGA • Lack of technical support

23. Thank You