NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT (NREGA): ITS STATUS IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT

AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION

Presented by:

Ashwini Kumar

POVERTY IN INDIA

Definition.

Causes.

Consequences.

Rural Crisis.

Steps taken by Government for eradication.

In general, poverty can be defined as a situation when people are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life.

Internationally, Income of less than $ 1 per day per person means extreme poverty.

By this estimate 24% Indians are extremly poor.

Standards of Planning Commission of India: based on food requirements per day:

RURAL URBAN 2400 calories 2100 calories based on Income : Rs. 365.65 ( $ 7) per month

Above mentioned poverty lines are described as starvation lines.

This income is bare minimum to support the food requirements and does not provide much for the other basic essential items like health, education etc.

One half of India’s poor is located in the three states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.

???....??? …??? Will the achievement of these Poverty

lines be enough for a nation to free itself from Poverty?

High level of dependence on primitive methods of agriculture

High population growth rate

High Illiteracy (about 35% of adult population)

Regional inequalities

Natural calamities

Protectionist policies pursued till 1991 that prevented high foreign investment

number of suicidal cases of farmers

starvation deaths

impoverishments

indebtedness

hunger.

Lack of income leads to malnutrition and hence gives rise to a number of diseases which remain uncured due to poverty.

Lack of food and health care due to low income/assets is associated with the higher probability of a new born child dying between birth and the age of one.

Major Rural crisis of the nation which need an immediate attention in

order to enable all the fundamental rights of a citizen are as

follows :

Growing unemployment and underemployment.

Falling purchasing power.

Declining per capita availability of food grains.

Reduced farm incomes and real wage growth.

Indebtedness and land alienation, esp. for small and marginal

farmers.

Deceleration in agricultural growth, productivity per worker and

rural non-agricultural employment growth.

Slackening pace of poverty reduction and worsening poverty

amongst marginalized social groups and ethnic minorities.

Microfinance.

BPL – Below Poverty Line.

Employment and Rural Development Policies :

Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

The scheme involves organisation of the poor into Self Help Groups (SHGs) build their capacities through a process of social mobilization, their training, selection of key activities, planning of activity clusters, creation of infrastructure, provision of technology and marketing support, etc. Under the scheme focus is on the group approach. However, individual Swarozgaris are also assisted.

Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY)

It aims to provide assistance for construction / up gradation of dwelling units to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) rural households, with special emphasis on SCs, STs and freed bonded labour categories. A maximum assistance of Rs 35,000 per unit is provided for construction in plain areas and Rs 38,500 per unit for hilly/difficult areas.

National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP)

It was launched with the aim to provide social assistance benefit to poor households in the case of old age, death of primary breadwinner and maternity. The programme supplements the efforts of the State Governments with the objective of ensuring minimum national levels of well being and the Central assistance is an addition to the benefit that the States are already providing on Social Protection Schemes.

Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) During the Eleventh Plan, the three area development programmes, namely, Integrated Wasteland Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Programme and Desert Development Programme have been integrated and consolidated into a single programme called Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP). This consolidation is for optimum use of resources, sustainable outcomes an integrated planning.

The modified IWMP would adopt a three tier approach in which the upper reaches which are mainly forested and hilly would be treated with the support of Forest Department. For land situated intermediate slopes above the agriculture lands, the IWMP would address all the necessary issues of land treatment by adopting best possible options including cropping pattern, horticulture and agro-forestry etc. In the lower tire, which are plains and mainly agricultural lands, the IWMP would be working with the employment generating programme such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)

Wage Employment programmes in India

Modeling Policies

Traditional Model

Government

schemes or

legislation to

tackle poverty

PROBLEM:

POVERTY

Result or

Impact

lack of awareness amongst local communities about existence of government programmes

dearth of community participation

lack of planning

creation of sub-standard quality of assets

false muster rolls

problems of payments

contract system

weak monitoring and verification systems

absence of comprehensive data base

multiple wage programmes running in parallel

PROBLEM 1 :

RURAL POVERTY

PROBLEM 2:

MIGRATION

Agricultural

inadequacy

Lack of

Education

unemployment

No industry in

rural areas

Deterioration in

health

Urban poverty

Rural

economy

weakens

Growth in

urban

settlements

LEGISLATION

REDUCTION IN POVERTY

AND MIGRATION

Company Name

The Employment Guarantee Act is a step towards the right to work, as an aspect of the

fundamental right to live with dignity.

- Mahatma Gandhi

“ To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God could dare appear was 'work and promise of food as wages. “

Providing wage employment opportunities

Creating sustainable rural livelihoods through

rejuvenation of natural resource base i.e.

augmenting productivity and supporting creation of

durable assets

Strengthening rural governance through

decentralisation and processes of transparency and

accountability

• The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 is a law whereby any adult who is willing to do unskilled manual work at the minimum wage is entitled to being employed on local public works within 15 days of applying, with a guarantee of 100 days of unskilled manual work per household per year

Employment within 15 days of application.

Unemployment allowance.

Work within 5 kilometres.

Minimum wages.

Payment within 15 days.

No gender discrimination.

Basic worksite facilities.

One of the main drivers of rural unemployment is the erosion of livelihoods in Indian villages. A number of rural employment programmes were launched by successive Governments of India over the years. However, these programmes achieved only partial success. The threat of collapse of the rural economy was increasingly becoming real. In this context, NREGA has come at a crucial time as a novel solution.

In 2005 UPA Government set up an apex body NAC( National Advisory Committee) responsible for designing the precursor to NREGA. It was also responsible for initiating the legislative process aimed at bringing it into existence.

NREGA was enacted on September 2005 in India. It was first brought into force with effect from February 2006 in 200 of the most backward Indian districts.

Title

water conservation;

drought proofing ;

irrigation canals including micro and minor irrigation works;

provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to the SCs and STs or to land of land reforms and Indira Awas Yojana beneficiaries;

renovation of traditional water bodies;

land development;

flood control and protection works;

rural connectivity to provide all-weather access; and

any other work which may be notified by the Central Government in consultation with the State Government.

2010-11

2010-11

Reports from various villages revealed that there has been more than 20 per cent reduction in the incidence of migration amongst children, who move out to work in brick kilns and dhabas.

School teachers report that NREGA had reduced migration by 10 to 20 per cent and school enrolment and retention had improved by 25 per cent.

This was largely because parents were staying back because of work availability.

• only 36 per cent of all rural workers in 2004-05 in India were women.

• Women workers account for nearly half of the workers employed in NREGA works so far.

• Women’s involvement is much higher than their overall work participation in the southern states. This is especially true in Kerala, where women’s participation in paid work has traditionally been low. Tamil Nadu, which has had high women’s work participation, shows even higher involvement in NREGA, with women accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the work under this scheme.

• Not only does NREGA provide money incomes directly to those women participating in it, in many states the wage delivery mechanism is linked to the opening of post office or bank accounts. This involves the access of a much greater number of women in institutional finance from which they have been largely excluded.

• Intra-household gender relations are also likely to be affected.

• The states where NREGA has led to a significant increase in women’s paid work, there are likely to be substantial social implications as well. These would be in addition to other changes, such as the decline in distress migration and the improvement in food consumption among certain families.

Increase in Agriculture Minimum Wages and wage earned per day and annual income. Bargaining power of labor has increased.

Earnings per HH has increased from Rs 2795 in 2006-07 to Rs 3150 in 2007-08 to Rs 4060 in 2008-09 and about Rs 5000 in 2009-10.

Financial Inclusion: 9.19 crore accounts opened.

Distress migration has reduced in many parts.

“Green Jobs” created as 70% works relate to water conservation, water-harvesting, restoration, renovation and de-silting of water bodies, drought-proofing, plantation & afforestation.

Productivity effects of NREGA reported.

Improvement in ground water.

Improved agricultural productivity & cropping intensity

Livelihood diversification in rural areas.

Creation and repair of rural infrastructure like roads and water bodies.

Retention of children in school and purchase of books for them.

Greater interest in local area development due to flow of funds and village meetings.

Changing local dynamics in many places with the recognition by workers that they are right holders.

Expansion in membership and activities of workers’ and peasant organizations

NREGA holds a huge promise for poverty reduction

with a supplementary average annual household income of more than Rs 6000. for this, wages, work days and aggregate expenditure on the Scheme should be high if the Programme has to make any significant dent on poverty. Creation of social and economic infrastructure too would go a long way in reducing poverty.

But NREGA has failed to perform to the expectations.

The poverty reducing potential is severely undermined through:

non-recognition of eligible persons as right holders;

inability to make claims due to imposition of a host of arbitrary and discretionary eligibility conditions;

non-fulfilment of entitlements guaranteed under the Act, in particular days of work and wages;

restrictions on the nature of permissible works;

absence of work in the most food-deficit rainy season due to focus on manual labour and earth works

Lack of professional staff

Lack of proper project planning

Bureaucratic resistance

Lack of transparency

Inappropriate rates of payments

Curtailment of entitlements.

THE KEEPER: Jean Dreze, one of NREGA's incubators

“ Q. A few economists complain about the improper implementation of NREGA. What, in your opinion, is the way to go about it? What are the real problems of implementation?

A. Our main concern should not be with the complaints of “a few economists”, but with those of millions of

workers. Their entitlements under the NREGA are routinely violated, whether it is the entitlement to work on

demand or to minimum wages or to payment within 15 days, or to basic worksite facilities.

For instance, in recent months there have been massive delays in wage payments around the country,

causing immense hardship to NREGS workers, but this is barely noticed in the corridors of power. Underlying

this state of affairs is the breakdown of grievance redress systems. All the grievance redress provisions of the

NREGA have been sidelined, including, for instance, the provisions for unemployment allowance, for penalties

on errant officials, for compensation in the event of delayed wage payments or for framing of Grievance

Redress Rules.

The Central and State governments don’t seem to be interested in making themselves accountable to the

people. “

Information, education and communication

Capacity building of the PRI staff and elected members

Recruitment of technical persons at GP level

Diversification in the NREG works

Supervision

There is no denying the fact that the NREGA is conceptually a very important national programme initiated at the level of the Central Government, but its record of implementation reveals that there are widespread complaints of corruption and mishandling of funds and very low level of utilisation of the budgeted provision.

It has, therefore, failed to impact on the poor rural households and if deterioration is not checked, the programme will lose the enthusiasm and momentum generated for it in 2006, describing it as a revolutionary project to impact on the life of the poor.