Comprehensive District Annual Plan 2011-12 Balasore District

Comprehensive District Annual Plan 2011-12 Balasore District
• Wages are to be paid according to the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for agricultural
labourers in the State, unless the Centre notifies a wage rate which will not be less than
Rs. 60/per day. Equal wages will be provided to both men and women.
• Wages are to be paid according to piece rate or daily rate. Disbursement of wages has to
be done on weekly basis and not beyond a fortnight in any case.
• At least one-third beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested work
under the scheme.
• Work site facilities such as crèche, drinking water, shed have to be provided
• The shelf of projects for a village will be recommended by the gram sabha and approved
by the zilla panchayat.
• At least 50% of works will be allotted to Gram Panchayats for execution.
• Permissible works predominantly include water and soil conservation, afforestation and
land development works.
• A 60:40 wage and material ratio has to be maintained. No contractors and machinery is
allowed
• The Central Government bears the 100 percent wage cost of unskilled manual labour
and 75 percent of the material cost including the wages of skilled and semi skilled
workers.
• Social Audit has to be done by the Gram Sabha.
• Grievance redressal mechanisms have to be put in place for ensuring a responsive
implementation process
• All accounts and records relating to the Scheme should be available for public scrutiny.
• Section 16 (3) (4) of the Act states that every Gram panchayat shall prepare a
development plan and maintain a shelf of works and forward it to the Programme Officer
for scrutiny and preliminary approval prior to the commencement of the year in which it
is proposed. The Development Plan is an Annual Work Plan that should comprise a shelf
of projects for each village with administrative and technical approvals so that works
can be started as soon as there is a demand for work. The Development Plan will be like
a rolling plan, since the approved shelf of projects may carry over from one financial
year to the next.
In Orissa, NREGA was started in 19 districts under Phase I. Then 5 districts were added in
Phase II and 6 districts in Phase III. Balasore district was included under NREGA in the Ist
phase, i.e. from 2008-09. During 2008-09, the performance of NREGA in the district is very
poor. Though Job cards were issued to almost 95% of the total BPL families in the district,
number of households provided employment is very less i.e., only 4.05% of the total
households issued job cards. The demand for wage work was also very poor, only 4.09% of
the total households issued job cards. Since, 2008-09 was the first year of programme
implementation; performance is expected to be poor. But during 2011-12, the performance
needs to be improved with significant participation of all stake holders.
During 2011-12, the plan outlay under the scheme is Rs. 4218.56 lakhs (CS: Rs. 3796.70
lakhs; SS: Rs. 421.86 lakhs)
DRDA Administration: DRDA’s are agencies functioning at district level and responsible
for implementation of all types of rural development programmes in the district. Since 1999,
Government of India introduced a new scheme called “DRDA administration” which is
funded on percentage basis. The expenditure component under this head is shared on
75:25 basis between central and state govt. The plan outlay under the scheme during 2011-
12 is Rs. 250.00 lakhs (CS: Rs. 187.50 lakhs; SS: Rs. 62.50 lakhs)
In addition to the above plan schemes, the district will receive an amount of Rs. 641.25
lakhs under 13 th Finance Commission Grant during 2011-12.
TSI: NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) 124