NREGA: Opportunities and Challenges - Diksha

NREGA: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGESA WHIM, MANY FALLACIESIn Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh, the Panchayats are a worried lot. The district administration eying for amention in the Guinness Book of Records for largest ever plantation. And the district collector orderedmassive plantation of Ratanjot saplings. The district rural development officials have found the right excuse:NREGA must be the vehicle for it. In 2006-07, the district spent 70 per cent of its NREGA money onplantation of Ratanjot despite a strict directive from the state Panchayat secretary on taking up only waterconservation works. After an expenditure of Rs. 60 crore on plantation, the district with just 11 per centirrigated lands doesn’t have any money for water conservation. Going by the report of CSE fellow RajeshAgrawal studying the implementation of NREGA in the district, most of the Panchayats did ask for waterconservation structures under the scheme. But the district officials prevailed over them.work. Due to delay on the part of junior engineer in providing completion report to district programmecoordinator, the state government withhold payment for works that is Rs 10 lakhs.Ramesh convinced the local traders to supply materials to complete works and loaned money frommoneylenders. It is more than three months, the government has not paid the rest amount and peoplechase Ramesh. “Every trip to block office (16 kms away from his village) costs me Rs 150, my monthlyhonorarium from government. I am nowhere,” says he. He has already made 15 trips to the blockspending 15 months of his honorarium in advance. Shivpur has not taken on any work under NREGA,despite demands from its residents. It has another 10 rural development programmes that require thePanchayat’s attention. “Thus the immediate and essential needs of the people were compromised. Smallthings like repair of drains couldn’t be undertaken as Panchayats in NREGA districts do not have anyflexible funds,” found a month-long survey done by the PACS in UP, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand inOctober 2007.Velji Bhil, the head of Varda Panchayat in Dungarpur district, expresses dissatisfaction over the meagreincome and manifold work that he had to balance. Over and above these the account keeping, muster rollsand constant monitoring of work is a big burden too. Given the lack of technical training Panchayatmembers on work sites are unable to monitor work effectively. This has repercussions on the calculationof amount of work completed and hence the wages. Union minister rural development Raghuvansh PrasadSingh admits that due to ignorance on the part of the officials as well as the elected representatives to thePRIs, grassroots planning is not taking place as per the mission and objective of NREGA (See box: A whim,many fallacies).NREGA is not the only work he is supposed to implement. There are 10 more programmes, starting fromold age pension distribution, looking after mid-day meals for children to drought rehabilitation schemes, thePanchayat implements. But his frequent trip for getting money cleared under the employment guaranteescheme means he is not delivering on other responsibilities. Although NREGA talks of involvement ofvillages in the planning process prior to taking up works, in reality the government officials have hijackedplanning and implementation.A different perspectiveCSE studied the village level planning process in the mentioned nine states. Preparation of perspectiveplanning is a major tool for involving the community in the scheme as well as making it relevant to them forlocal development. In all the states we studied the old plans for National Food for Works Programme(NFFWP) have been adopted. Perspective plans under the NFFWP were entirely prepared by governmentofficials, as there was no mandatory provision for involving the Panchayats. The previous NFFWP sites weredesignated as NREGA worksites thus the local communities had no say over their choice and utility.It comes out eminently that the interim provision of adapting the perspective plans of NFFWP has stymiedvillage level planning. Many state governments copied NFFWP district perspective plan for theimplementation of NREGA. Orissa government inserted Section-4 into Orissa Rural Employment GuaranteeAct (OREGA), which specifies that until the state scheme is notified, the annual plan or perspective plan of50