2008

National Rural
Employment
Guarantee Act
Analysis & Recommendations

Submitted By:
Aarti Utreja – 2008 001
Devesh Gupta – 2008 012
Mugdha Lakhakar – 2008 024
Rohit Vashisht – 2008 043
Rajiv Trivedi – 2008 050
 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Acknowlegdement

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Mihir Mahapatra, our Course Lecturer for
Macro Economics for giving us this wonderful opportunity to take this project on the
“National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” and thereby enhance our learning on Macro
Economic issues of interest.

We also express our sincere thanks to Prof. Raghuveer Vernekar for extending his invaluable
help in formulating the project report and completion of the project. Last but not the least; we
extend our heartfelt thanks to the almighty for the successful completion of the project. We
look forward to doing some quality learning of this kind in future as well.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Table of Contents

Acknowlegdement ...................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ................................................................... 4

Introduction ............................................................................... 5

Objective: ................................................................................... 5

Objective of the Study ................................................................ 6

Data and Methodology................................................................ 6

History Behind NREGA............................................................... 7

Unique Features ......................................................................... 9

Structure of NREGA ................................................................. 11

Problems in Implementation ..................................................... 15

Recommendations .................................................................... 19

Conclusion ............................................................................... 22

References ................................................................................ 23

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Executive Summary

Our “Father of The Nation” Gandhiji once said that the heart of India lies in the
rural areas. He said this because he had understood the fact that a major part of
India‟s population lies in the rural India. If India as a nation had to survive and
grow, it was important that the rural India contributes to it.

Sixty two years have passed since we became independent. But this fact has not
come to the mind of any Government or rather one can say that no one ever took
a note of what our “Father of The Nation” had said. The so called leaders of our
nation remember the rural India and its problems only once in every 5 years i.e.
when the elections are on their head.

But finally after so many years had passed, there came one law in 2005, to be
implemented in 2006, the “National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” that was
focused towards the rural India. There were many schemes that came before as
well for the rural India but this was different. It was an Act. It made the
providing of jobs a duty for Government and for the job -seeker - a right.

Here is what one of the credible organizations had to say about this act:

“Every person who digs a pond renovates an irrigational canal and plants
a tree contributes a bit to poverty alleviation in India.

Under NREGA, more than one percent of India’s population would have
done that in the last ten months.

That is the scheme’s development potential.”

A report by Centre for Science and Environment

This report is sincere effort towards analysing an Act that has the potential to
awaken the rural India (as can be seen in the above statem ent). The report talks
about the Act, its unique features, its procedure for implementation, the
problems that it has faced during the last two years and the suggestions that
would lead it to a good future.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Introduction

On February 2, 2006, amid great hype and hope, the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (NREGA) came into force in 200 of India’s most backward districts. In the
year 2007, it was extended to cover another 130 districts and with effect from April 1,
2008, the Act is to cover all of rural India. This is the largest ever public employment
programme visualised in human history1. (Pramathesh Ambasta, 2008)

The Act provides:

1. A legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment in a year to any adult who
resides in a rural area and who is willing to do unskilled manual work at the
minimum wage rate.
2. He will be given a wage equal to the minimum wage for the agriculture labourers
in the State. In any case, it cannot be lesser than Rs.60 per day.
3. The work will be within 5 km from the applicant’s residence. In case of a distance
of more than 5 km, travel allowance will be paid.
4. In case the applicant is unable to get work within 15 days of submission of the
application for work or from the date when work is sought whichever is earlier,
he will be eligible to get an unemployment allowance.

Objective2:

The basic objective of this Act is to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of
the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of
guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult
members volunteer to do unskilled manual work and for matters connected therewith
or incidental thereto.

1
Source : Economic & Political Weekly Article,2008
2
Source : National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Objective of the Study

The basic objective of our report is to go deep in and study a national Act that we believe has
potential to change the life of people of rural India. This scheme talks about providing a fixed
source of money to people in rural India, a concept totally unheard in the streets of India.

Thus, it becomes important to study the Act, its unique features and approach of
implementation. But the biggest problem with programs of Indian Government is not the
planning but implementation. Thus, we also need to analyse if the scheme has produced
results as expected during the last two years.

Data and Methodology

Our study is mainly based on the secondary data that was gathered from various Government
agency sites as well as reports from individual journals, magazines, etc. The details regarding
the reports refereed to are mentioned in the References (given at the end of this report).

Here we would like to mention with deep regret that Government sites do not provide the
data that as a citizen of India one should have access to. The reports are available on the site
but they cannot be opened simply because the links do not work. Therefore, we had to rely
more or less on the reports provided by private parties and other government bodies such as
Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Centre of Science and Environment, Central
Statistical Organization, etc.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

History Behind NREGA

The first set of programmes, the National Rural Employment Programme and the Rural
Landless Employment Programme, began in the 1970s as clones of the Maharashtra EGS. In
1989, the Rajiv Gandhi government clubbed the two schemes into one, revamped the
schemes and decided the implementation would be done through the panchayati raj
institutions (village-level elected institutions). Thus born the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY);
but it was totally different. The bureaucratic machinery was bypassed; funds would be
deposited in the accounts of each village institution responsible for planning development
activities used to create employment creation, and overseeing implementation. The scheme
began but it was never given a chance to succeed. In reality, JRY was perhaps an idea before
its time (See Box: Rural wage employment programmes in India).

In 1990, when prime minister V P Singh ambushed the Rajiv Gandhi government over the
Bofors gun scandal, the election call was a promise to „guarantee‟ Maharashtra-type
employment for all. Instead the next government lead by Narasimha Rao diluted what
existed. By 1993, JRY received little political leadership or attention3. It was agreed (from
largely anecdotal and some official reports) that the scheme, controlled by people‟s
representatives, was leading to increased corruption and even greater inefficiency in delivery.
Therefore, it needed to be re-vamped. In 1993, the Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS)
was launched. Now, half the allocated funds for rural employment would be passed through
the bureaucracy, not the panchayati raj institutions. The big brother was back in business, to
the tune of roughly Rs 2,000 crore each year.

In April 2002 another re-naming took place. This time the two schemes - JRY and EAS -were
merged to create the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yogana ( SGRY). Its spending, too, was
divided between the panchayati raj institutions and the administration. Incidentally, in the
National Democratic Alliance period the name of JRY had been changed into the Jawahar
Gram Samridhi Yogana (JGSY). A component of SGRY provided foodgrain to calamity-
stricken states for relief work. Now the cost increased to about Rs 4,000 crore per year. Then
came the semi-final reincarnation. In late 2004, the National

3
Source: An Ecological Act : A Backgrounder to NREGA by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Food for Work Programme (NFWP) was launched, targeting 150 backward districts. These
districts were identified through a task force set up by the ministry of rural development,
which used three variables to compute „backwardness‟ - agricultural productivity per worker,
agricultural wage rate and scheduled caste and schedule tribe population in the district. This
programme was to be implemented through attention and a menu of “labour- intensive
projects” would be prepared, to be undertaken over a five-year period. In the 2005-06 budget,
the allocation was increased. NFWP got Rs 6,000 crore in addition to the SGRY‟s Rs 4,000
crore. The NFWP remains the programme design for the NREGA.
The final change came in December 2004, when the National Rural Employment Guarantee
Bill was proposed in Parliament. The bill provided a guarantee of 100 days of unskilled
manual work in a financial year to every poor household, in rural areas, whose adult members
volunteered for work. The first phase was to cover 200 districts.

4
Source: An Ecological Act : A Backgrounder to NREGA by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Unique Features
There are certain characteristics about National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that make
it unique in nature. They are as follows:

1. The most important change NREGA represents is that it gives rise to programmes that
spring not from its wilful benevolence, but as a legally binding response by the state
to a right to work that is, after NREGA, enshrined in law. This also means that a
constraint of resources cannot be cited by the government as an excuse for not
providing work and its attendant entitlements, all of which are now also safeguarded
in the Constitution. This is a commitment by the state that is unprecedented in the
history of independent India – both as a legally enforceable right and in terms of
financial resources5.

2. NREGA comes up with a set of extraordinary guidelines with a very clear view on
planning and implementation of the program. Social audit has also received quite a lot
of importance in these guidelines. These guidelines give us an impression that the
quality of work is at the centre of the stage.

3. NREG Act clearly specifies that the implementation of this Scheme has to be routed
through the Government machinery only. Thus, contractors will not be used for
implementation of this scheme. This is a major deviation from the past practices that
are followed by the government. It is not very widely known but most government
programmes in rural areas over the last 60 years have been implemented through the
agency of local contractors, who have emerged as major sources of exploitation of the
rural poor, especially women. They have run roughshod over basic human rights,
paying labour a pittance and doing most work through labour-displacing machinery6.

4. A great amount of emphasis has been put on the transparency and accountability part
during the guidelines. A lot of importance is been given to the use of Information
Technology (IT) as well. This given us an indication that the government has learn
from its past mistakes. Corruption has been a very major problem during all the
welfare programs implemented in the past. This kind of an emphasis on transparency

Source : Economic & Political Weekly Article, 2008

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

and accountability in the NREGA guidelines is a way to protect the scheme from
corruption.

5. Finally, this scheme seems to have followed the path that John Maynard Keynes had
shown to the world with his book named “The General Theory of Employment,
Interest and Money”7. Published in February 1936, it sought to bring about a
revolution, commonly referred to as the "Keynesian Revolution", in the way
economists thought - especially in relation to the proposition that a market economy
tends naturally to restore itself to full employment after temporary shocks.
Before Keynes came out with his opinion, the classical belief was the most prominent
one throughout the world. But according to Keynes, the market forces of demand and
supply do not take care and balance themselves always as the classical thinkers
believed. He said that Government intervention was also necessary at times to
stimulate the demand in the economy.
NREGA as a scheme is a way of directly going to the rural areas and providing
unemployed people with employment and therefore money. This money in turn will
create demand in the economy. And as Keynes had said, the effect will be in multiples
of the amount spent by the government which can be explained using the “Keynesian
Multiplier Effect”. This increase in demand from the rural areas will lead to increase
in supply and therefore more employment.

Thus, this scheme has the potential to:

 Stimulate demand from the rural areas that have been dormant markets
throughout these many years even after independence.
 To create more employment for the economy and especially for the rural
areas.
 To help Indian Economy as a whole in achieving a higher growth rate with the
support of the demand created in the rural parts of the country.
 To help in leading development of rural areas as the supply of goods and
services in these areas will increase. Thus, it can reduce the huge amount of
geographical diversity that our nation faces.

Source : Introduction by Paul Krugman to The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John
Maynard Keynes

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Structure of NREGA

The Act attempts to unlock the potential of the rural poor to contribute to the reconstruction
of their environment. To achieve this, it has laid emphasis on creation of productive assets in
villages. Out of nine preferred areas of works under the NREGA, seven focuses on water and
soil conservation. The attention of the scheme is on the following works in their order of
priority8:

1. Water conservation and water harvesting

2. Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation)
3. Irrigation canals (including micro and minor irrigation works)
4. Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes or to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or that of the
beneficiaries under the Indira Awas Yojana of the government of India
5. Renovation of traditional water bodies (including desilting of tanks)
6. Land development
7. Flood control and protection works (including drainage in water-logged areas)
8. Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access
9. Any other work, which may be notified by the Central government in consultation
with the state government

Under the Act each state is required to formulate a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
within six months of its enactment. As mentioned above the broad features like preferred
works are non-negotiable thus no state can change it under its state scheme. Till the time the
state has not formulated the scheme and its guidelines, the annual or perspective plan under
the SGRY or the NFFWP, whichever is in force in the state, will work as action plan for
NREGA implementation.

The diagram below gives us a picture of how the program will be implemented, who all are
involved and what are their responsibilities. As one can clearly observe from the diagram, the
plan is to implement the scheme through government mechanisms rather than private bodies.
Broadly, the village and intermediary Panchayat manage the implementation activities while
coordination activities are done at the district Panchayat level. Planning, supervision and

8
Source : The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

monitoring take place at all levels. However, at every level the agencies concerned are
accountable to the communities.

Village Panchayats are the basic implementing bodies for the NREGA. Local bodies (See
chart: Who does what?) will plan, design and execute the works to be taken up. This is a step
towards making this Act a participatory process and empowering people at the lowest level.
At least 50 percent of the works under the scheme will be implemented through village
panchayats. Currently, according to the Union ministry of rural development, village
panchayats are implementing close to 85 percent of all works under the Act. The Act
mandates the Panchayats to prepare village-level plans based on local resources and needs.
These plans are then implemented using the NREGA, which effectively insulates them from
political whims and pressures.

9
Source : An Ecological Act : A report on “A Backgrounder to the NREGA” by “Centre for Science and
Environment”

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

The Gram Sabha (village council) is the legally compulsory institutional mechanism for
community participation10. In addition, other methods of community participation could be
instituted: local vigilance and monitoring committees, workers associations, local beneficiary
committees, self-help groups, users groups and other grassroots structures. The village
council takes the decision to formulate such users groups. Implementation of the NREGA
starts from the Gram Sabha, which first declares the implementation of the scheme. The
Gram Sabha also takes charge of popularizing the scheme for registration of people and also
the procedures to demand works. The Act authorises the Gram Sabha to recommend works to
be taken up under the scheme, to monitor and supervise these works, and to conduct social
audits of the implementation.

The village Panchayat is responsible for planning of works, registering households, issuing
job cards and monitoring implementation of the scheme at village level. The Act advises
appointment of employment guarantee assistant in each panchayat for this purpose. The
intermediary Panchayat is responsible for planning at the block level, and for monitoring and
supervision. This department/level of Panchayat is also given works for implementation of
the remaining 50 percent not implemented under the village Panchayat. District Panchayat is
responsible for finalising the district plans for NREGA which is a comprehensive plan of
action for the scheme for the district. District Panchayat can also implement works from the
50 percent non-village Panchayat pool.

The state government formulates regulations to facilitate the overall implementation. It sets
up the State Employment Guarantee Council to advise the government on implementation of
the scheme, and to evaluate and monitor it. The council also takes decisions on the preferred
works to be undertaken in the state. The central government is rural development ministry is
the nodal ministry for implementation and fund disbursal. It also monitors and evaluates the
scheme. Besides it sets up the Central Employment Guarantee Council for advising it on
various issues related to NREGA.

NREGA is primarily implemented through two planning documents at district level called
district perspective plan and annual plan. Though the district Panchayat coordinates these
planning and the other two tiers of Panchayat, participation plays a crucial roles in the
exercise. These two documents are designed as local five-year plans that take care of local
needs. Based on these plans the Panchayats identify works. The annual plan is basically a

10
Source : The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

shelf of works to be taken up under the schemes and must be completed by December for the
next year plan. The works are selected keeping in mind its impact on local development. The
district perspective plan is intended to facilitate advance planning and to provide a
development perspective for the district. This plan is prepared based on the linkages of assets
to be created that will help in local development. This plan is usually for five years and based
village level inputs from Panchayat.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Problems in Implementation
NREGA as we understood till now is one of the greatest acts the Government has ever come
up with for the benefit of the society. The features of the plan talk about some of the extra-
ordinary provisions that are being applied after learning from the past mistakes. Also as far as
the implementation mechanism is concerned, the system designed is very different and one
feels that there is a sincere effort from the Government side to restrict corruption in this
scheme (which has been a major cause for the failure of the past schemes).

But as has always been the case, implementation of Government problems have always
produced dismal results. And NREGA cannot be an exception to this. The Ministry of Rural
Development views the program as a success. On the other hand, reviews by surveys
conducted by Central Statistical Organization (CSO), Centre for Science & Environment
(CSE), etc show otherwise.

Given below are some of the major problems that the program is facing:

Preparedness of the states

Many states are still struggling with the teething problems of implementation of the National
act at the state level. Reports suggest that some of the states have been more active while
some have had an extremely poor response. For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, State Government
passed its own state scheme in compliance with the National Act on 23rd May 200611. This
resulted in a delay of the preparation of state guidelines and consequent implementations of
the NREGS by the Panchayats in the state.

Reports have also found that many a times, the state councils were formed late in many
states. Therefore, even in case of problems, there is no avenue for redressal. Like in
Jharkhand where 20 districts out of the 22 districts of the state are covered under NREGS, the
state council has not been formed.

Unequal distribution of funds and the resource utilization in districts

A Panchayat can initiate work in its Gram Panchayats only when funds are made available to
the gram Panchayats account. However, in the last nine months of the implementation, many
Panchayats did not receive the required grant in time. Similarly, there was a different
response of the states as well as districts to the implementation of NREGA. Some states were

11
Source : A report on “Status of NREGA Implementation” by “Samarthan – Centre for Development Support”

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

very active in implementation like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan while some states lagged
behind like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The policy of transfer of funds from the Centre to
the State in implementation was more or less same across the board. Yet some of the districts
more and some other districts received less grant. In Madhya Pradesh the first kick off grant
was released by the centre in the month of March and April directly to the districts. Many
districts with the same number of job cardholders received remarkably different amounts in
the first kick off grant.

Inadequate flexibility in guidelines for addressing local issues

Experts on the issue prepared the state and the national guidelines; however, there are many
unforeseen conditions that cannot be anticipated. Panchayats need at least minimum
flexibility and sensitivity to handling by the administration. For instance in Rajnandgaon
district of Chattisgarh, construction of pond and other water conservation structure are being
pushed by the state administration, however, the local soil condition is such that the water
seeps in, and cannot be stored for long, if strong bottom base (pitching) of the pond is not
prepared. However, Panchayats with NREGS resources could not undertake such
investments.

Lower payment of wages:

Work done on rural employment programmes in India is measured through the schedule of
rates (SoR). This schedule provides rates at which work done by labour is valued. Workers
are paid according to the value placed on their work by the SoR. What the government has
overlooked is that the present SoRs are meant for a system that uses contractors and machines
to carry out public works. These contractors, as a rule, do not pay statutory minimum wages
to labour and get most of their work done through machines like the JCB.2 Deploying the
same SoRs under NREGA makes it impossible for workers to earn minimum wages. This is
also because existing SoRs make inadequate provisions for variations in geology and climate,
discriminate against women, tend to underpay workers by lumping various activities together
and do not revise rates in line with increments in statutory minimum wages [Vijay Shankar et
al 2006]. Deploying the old SoRs also makes it impossible for implementers like gram
panchayats to correctly cost works undertaken by them. The result is a varying combination
of a series of malpractices – more work is shown than actually undertaken on the ground,
poor quality of work takes place, works are left incomplete as actual costs exceed sanctions,

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

labour is underpaid, bogus workers are shown as paid while machines actually do the work,
etc.

Creating Wrong Notions about Program:

It appears that the existing bureaucratic machinery is just not willing to play ball with the
strict provisions of NREGA and are at times actively sabotaging its implementation. Where
PRI leaders are keen to implement NREGA work, secretaries and executive officers of gram
panchayats are seen to be working overtime to convince these leaders of the “perils” of
getting entangled with NREGA. In Bolangir, Orissa, executive officers of panchayats
routinely dissuade sarpanchs from putting up a demand for work under NREGA by raising
the bogey of getting caught under the strict provisions of the law. NREGA is apparently seen
as a programme where making money is not only “unnecessarily complicated” but might also
be “fraught with danger”. While critics of the Act have expressed fears that this scheme too
will go the normal route of leakages, ironically many field-level functionaries perceive
NREGA as a programme where corruption is very difficult, due to the numerous procedures
that have been introduced.

Cost of the Program:

Finally, we now talk about one of the most important problems that is faced by NREGA –
problem of inadequate funds to successfully run the program. From April 2008 onwards, the
NREGA will be extended to the whole country. In our own view, this is a decision that
should have been taken only after the lessons of the first two years had been absorbed and
necessary correctives put into place. Be that as it may, the Economic and Political Weekly
has estimated the cost12 of the support structure assuming that the employment guarantee will
extend to the whole country from April 2008.
Table 2 (p 46) presents the total cost of works under the employment guarantee. According to
the Seventh Report of the Rural Labour Enquiry [Labour Bureau 2004], there were 13.71
crore rural households (RH) in the country in 1999-2000, of which 5.51 crore (40 per cent)
were rural labour households (RLH). Projecting the number of RLH to grow at an annual
compound rate of 1.93 per cent (the national rate of growth of population between 1991 and
2001), we get a figure of 6.42 crore RLH in the country in April 2008. If we assume that 80
per cent of them offer themselves for employment, the number of RLH for whom the 100-day
job guarantee would have to be extended comes to 5.14 crore,

12
Source : Economic and Political Weekly Report, 2008

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

(say, for the sake of convenience 5 crore households). Assuming a daily minimum wage rate
of Rs 70 (which is the weighted average of minimum wages across states reported by the
MoRD 2008), the total wage cost of the programme is Rs 35,000 crore. The average wage:
non-wage cost ratio of NREGA over the last two years has been around 70:30 [MoRD 2008].
Thus, the total cost of NREGA works comes to Rs 50,000 crore, if the programme is to be
extended to the whole country by April 2008.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Recommendations
Before we give any recommendations from our side, here are the recommendations that
Second Administrative Reforms Commission13 gave for NREGA to the Ministry of Rural
Development:

Here are some of the additional recommendations from our side:

Concentration on productive asset creation:

NREGA as the name suggests means to create employment for the rural people of India, but
the prime objective of it is to make sure that it creates assets with the people who are
employed through this scheme. This will create a sense of feeling in the mind of the other
villagers that this scheme is giving results and thus motivate them to join it and thus help the
scheme to get nearer to its main purpose.

The real effectiveness of the scheme can be measured by using three parameters:

1. Increase in average annual income of households

2. Increase in the productivity of small and marginal land holdings
3. Quality and contribution of assets like water tanks to overall water availability and
groundwater recharge etc.

13
Source : An Ecological Act : A report on “A Backgrounder to the NREGA” by “Centre for Science and
Environment”

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

Wage Payment:

NREGA promises employment but does not say anything about the wage rate. In actual the
wage rate for a NREGA worker is very less i.e. about 40% of what the same person could
have earned by putting the same efforts in building the roads.14 Some states have rationalised
the wage structure but some still follow the old structure and pay very less.

Though the NREGA scheme provides a minimum wage clause this point is not well
highlighted and often ignored, this wage structure is not based on the effort put but on time
spent on job. The recommendations are that these points should be highlighted more so that
they can be implemented along with the scheme and thus increase participation among the
people.

Focus on completion and maintenance of work

It has been seen that 80% of the work started by NREGA was left incomplete after 2 years of
beginning15 as there is no provision in the act for completion of the work. The states have
also found out an easy way to keep the work going forever they take up big projects and then
leave them incomplete after 2 years and then these projects get washed away in monsoons
which leads to building them again and not seeing a finished project in a long time.

The maintenance of these projects is also very costly and the government does not provide
this on regular basis which leads to fund shortage which ultimately leads to incompletion of
the project and wastages of funds already put invested.

Village level planning:

As NREGA is a scheme which is for the rural India the control of its design has to be in the
hands of the users i.e. the village panchayats. The scheme was build in this fashion only
where the end user had the right to design the program but after so many years of its
implementations it has been seen that NFFWP (National Food for Work Programme) does all
the planning and bypasses the gram panchayats and local bodies to implement the plan. This
is the mistake which the early schemes also made and failed miserably.

14 12
Source : Center for science and environment.

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Water conservation & Plantation:

There are no restrictions on the work which is taken up by the villagers to work on as per
NREGA i.e., they are free to build any infrastructure they feel is important for them and
NFFWP is also under no pressure to build a particular asset.

All things considered when NREGA was started it had a basic project in mind that this
scheme will be used to build assets for water conservation and likes but only 5 states have
implemented this scheme in this direction out of which 67% of the work is carried out in
Andhra Pradesh alone. This shows how the main aim of NREGA is not fulfilled though this
aim is not explicitly mentioned anywhere.

This aim was set taking into consideration many criteria‟s such as the areas where NREGA
was implemented were basically short of water and this could help them save water for
irrigation and other important work.

In the same manner plantation is also a permissible work under NREGA which is not very
widely used and can be very helpful to achieve the above mentioned goal of saving water.
This work helps save the trees and also afforestation and helps keep the ground water level
appropriate.

Train and hire Personnel:

One of the problems with this programme is that the people monitoring are not in sufficient
or are not well qualified, so the monitoring and execution is not done appropriately. The
suggestion is to

a. Appoint a full time district programme coordinator dedicated to NREGA.

b. Appoint a full time programme officer at the block level, dedicated only for NREGA.
c. Appoint 3 civil engineers at each block level.
d. Appointments of employee guarantee assistants in each village.16

16
Source : Economic & Political Weekly Article,2008

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Conclusion
We would like to end with a brief reflection on the politics of NREGA. For it cannot be
overlooked that the very enactment of NREGA is the product of a sustained struggle led by
civil society and supported by left-leaning politicians across the political spectrum. The
significance of this movement cannot be overstated as it represents one of the very few
successful campaigns in favour of the rural poor in India, whose voice is almost unheard on
the national scene. This is, of course, truly ironic for it is these “dumb millions” who fashion
the destinies of those seeking to rule this country. But their cries for reform of the public sec-
tor in rural areas, which is often their sole lifeline, have gone completely unattended.

The NREGA ranks among the most powerful initiatives ever undertaken for transformation
of rural livelihoods in India. The unprecedented commitment of financial resources is
matched only by its imaginative architecture that promises a radically fresh programme of
rural development. However, for NREGA to realise its potential, it must focus on raising the
productivity of agriculture in India‟s most backward regions. This can then lead further to the
creation of allied livelihoods on the foundation of water security. This is also the only way
we can envision a decline in the size of the work guarantee over time, as public investment
under NREGA leads to higher rural incomes, that in turn spurs private investment and greater
in- comes and employment.

Finally, we can say that “The NREGA Programme”, reformed on certain aspects as
mentioned, holds out the prospect of not only transforming livelihoods of the poorest people
of our country but also heralding a revolution in rural governance in India.

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 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

References

Following reports have been our point of references for preparation of this project:

1. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005

2. Two Years of NREGA : The Road Ahead, Economic & Political Weekly, 2008
3. An Ecological Act : The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Centre for
Science and Environment
4. Status of NREGA Implementation 2006-07, Central Statistical Organization
5. Performance Audit Report No. 11 of 2008, Comptroller and Auditor General of India
6. The Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act : Will it remove poverty in
India, Overseas Development Institute
7. Introduction by Paul Krugman to The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and
Money, by John Maynard Keynes

Apart from these we have collected information from various articles of the following
newspapers:

1. The Economic Times

2. The Financial Express
3. The Hindu Times
4. The Times of India
5. The Indian Express
6. The Telegraph of India

Some of the online sources of information that we accesses were:

1. www.nrega.nic.in
2. www.rural.nic.in

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