Feedback from an ongoing two-year study on the Indian government's landmark National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and its implementation is not very encouraging. It throws up allegations of fraud, misappropriation of funds and unutilised financial allocations. Worse, many people are still completely unaware of the scheme and how to register under it

Feedback from an ongoing two-year study by the non-government organisation PRIA (Participatory Research In Asia) on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) and its implementation shows that the scheme is not working too well on the ground. The study is being conducted in four phases, between December 2005 and June 2008, across 24 districts spread over the 16 states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and West Bengal. It covers 5,600 randomly-selected households, in 563 gram panchayats. Village panchayats and NGOs working in the field were contacted to help prepare the feedback.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, passed by the Indian Parliament in August 2005, is one of independent India's most ambitious interventions to address rural poverty and empower poor people. The NREGA follows a set of legally enforceable employment norms, with the aim of ending food insecurity, empowering village communities, and creating useful assets in rural areas. It is based on the assumption that every adult has a right to basic employment opportunities at the statutory minimum wage. It guarantees 100 days of wage employment per household per year, at the minimum wage of Rs 60 a day.

From its study, however, PRIA found that neither "functionaries nor finance were being devolved in an effective manner". It also found that close to 80% of households were unaware of how the scheme worked on the ground.

Village panchayat members and NGOs allege that half the whopping Rs 1,300 crore given to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) for 2005-06 has been allowed to lapse. NGOs allege that while village panchayats spent most of their financial allocations under the scheme, government departments displayed "criminal negligence" by failing to utilise their share of the funds.

The NREGA is currently being implemented in 200 backward districts in India by a staggering 1.75 lakh panchayats across 28 states. In the current financial year, it is expected to spread to 400 backward districts across the country. Manoj Rai, National Coordinator of PRIA, points out that 30-40 families are expected to benefit from the scheme in every village in the 400 districts.

Response to the NREGS varies from state to state. The registration percentage of 'eligible' households is as little as 14% in Bihar's Madhubani district, but it is close to 100% in Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh.

Dr Yogesh Kumar, Executive Director of the Bhopal-based Samarthan Centre for Development and Support (that prepared the study), points out that the NREGA provides employment to anyone who possesses a job card. "And if the individual is not given employment he can apply to the panchayat or government department for an unemployment dole," says Kumar. "(But) since this money for the dole has to come out of the state and not the central exchequer, the district-level officials and panchayats refuse to accept any applications for dole. Instead, they will periodically announce a programme to start tree plantation or de-silting of water tanks, and the entire district will have to subscribe to it thereby diluting the whole spirit of this Act."

The NREGA unambiguously states that panchayats must ensure proper implementation of the scheme. But, NGOs found, the onus of implementation had shifted from the gram panchayat to either individual panchayats or the Block Development Officer (BDO). And, since BDOs and other district-level functionaries possess a lot of power they find it convenient to sideline the individual sarpanch completely, thereby stopping any kind of effective community intervention.

Although gram panchayats do not hesitate to announce a scheme whenever they receive an allocation of funds, the case is completely the reverse with government functionaries who show little interest in providing any employment at the village level, alleges the study.

The Centre has categorised eight kinds of work that can be carried out under this scheme, and the NREGA includes a provision whereby SC/STs can receive funds to develop private land that has been allotted to them by panchayats. But, says Rai: "Few tribals availed of this money because they had not heard about this scheme."

Wide variations in performance were seen in the different states. Lack of awareness and confusion about the registration process were the most important reasons for the slow start of registrations. Although registrations have picked up, significant numbers of households are still unaware of the appropriate authority to register with.

The study also found that physical and emotional access to people was considered the most important factor for increasing registration numbers. Data from sample districts suggest that except for Jharkhand (where panchayats don't exist), Tamil Nadu (where panchayat elections were held in October 2006), West Bengal (where assembly elections took place recently, and the results are still awaited), most states show an increase in registration figures. Progress is slow, however, in Haryana, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh, the state government has recently initiated a scheme where educated employed are provided unemployment allowances, mostly in state-sponsored events for the purpose. In three districts in Uttar Pradesh, where this sample survey was undertaken, people appeared confused between the NREGS and the state's Berozgari Bhatta (unemployment allowances for educated unemployed) scheme. They pointed out that while one gave an unemployment allowance for the educated, the other provided the same for the uneducated!

The most alarming aspect highlighted in the report was the fact that lack of authority had created a situation where gram panchayats were not in a position to encourage job card holders to apply for jobs. If this is not corrected immediately, the entire rights-based approach of the NREGA will be negated. Often, projects undertaken under the scheme were not those that had been approved by the gram sabha. In that sense, they were not contributing towards rural development

-- Rashme Sehgal

(Read a national progress report on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Also, individual reports on the status of the NREGS in Bihar , Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh)

(Rashme Sehgal is a Delhi-based writer and journalist)

InfoChange News & Features, July 2007