MGNREGA_SAMEEKSHA

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Foreword
iv. Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) have accounted for 51 per cent of the total person-days
generated and women for 47 per cent, well above the mandatory 33 per cent as required by the Act.
v. 146 lakh works have been taken up since the beginning of the programme, of which about 60 per cent have
been completed. Of these works,
• 19 per cent relate to rural connectivity (e.g. village roads)
• 25 per cent relate to water conservation and water harvesting
• 14 per cent relate to irrigation canals and renovation of traditional water bodies
• 13 per cent relate to flood protection and drought proofing
• 13 per cent relate to land development
• 14 per cent relate to work done on private lands (lands belonging to small and marginal farmers/SCs/
STs/Below Poverty Line (BPL) households/Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and land reform beneficiaries)
vi. 12 crore Job Cards (JCs) have been given and these along with the 9 crore muster rolls have been uploaded
on the Management Information System (MIS), available for public scrutiny. Since 2010–11, all details with
regard to the expenditure of the MGNREGA are available on the MIS in the public domain.
While implementation remains uneven and patchy across States and districts, there is evidence to suggest
that MGNREGA has contributed to (a) increased rural wages everywhere; (b) reduced distress migration from
traditionally migration-intensive areas; (c) usage of barren areas for cultivation; and (d) empowerment of the
weaker sections and giving them a new sense of identity and bargaining power.
III
Though the achievements of MGNREGA have been impressive, there have been issues with regard to its
implementation that need to be recognised and addressed meaningfully. On 1 September 2011, the Ministry
of Rural Development released a discussion paper titled ‘Reforms in MGNREGA Implementation’. This paper
identified nine major challenges in the MGNREGA implementation and suggested measures to deal with them
effectively. These were:
• Ensure demand-driven legal entitlements
• Reduce distress migration from rural areas
• Reduce delays in wage payments to workers
• Provide the requisite number of days of work as per demand
• Improve quality of assets created under MGNREGA and their relevance to the livelihoods of the poor
• Ensure full payment of wages stipulated under MGNREGA
• Anchor participatory grassroots planning
• Sustain regular flow of funds
• Strengthen grievance redressal mechanisms
Subsequently, on 21 September 2011, an expert committee under the chairmanship of Dr Mihir Shah,
Member, Planning Commission, was set up to give greater operational content to the solutions suggested to
deal with the nine challenges. Based on the report of this expert committee, the list of permissible works under
MGNREGA was expanded in March 2012 to:
• Strengthen the synergy between MGNREGA and rural livelihoods, particularly agriculture
• Respond to the demands of states for greater location-specific flexibility in permissible works
• Help improve the health and ecological situation in rural India, with a particular focus on sanitation
We will also be issuing a new set of Operational Guidelines for MGNREGA based on the recommendations
of the Mihir Shah Committee so that the challenges in its implementation are effectively addressed and the real
potential of MGNREGA can be realised.