5 Ways NREGA 2.0 will Address Legacy Challenges
Skill Training: The logical next step, from manual to skilled. One person from each household that completes 100 days of work will be trained under NRLM on a range of skills like carpentry.
CAG Audit: An annual CAG audit - limited to the utilisation of NREGA funds - will help bring in more transparency. This year's report will be in by November, to be submitted to Parliament by December.
END to Minimum Wage Row: The AP High Court ruling that NREGA payments below state minimum wages amounted to forced labour had put GoI in a quandary. The ministry will now amend the NREGA Act to put an end to the controversy. Safeguards to ensure that states don't arbitrarily jack up minimum wages will be put in place.
MoRD funds for MoPR: The rural development ministry will transfer 1% of its entire budget of Rs 99,000 crore to the panchayati raj ministry for capacity building and training of panchayats. This, it hopes, will bring in a sea change in NREGA implementation at the ground level.
Rural Sanitation: NREGA funds will be deployed to promote rural hygiene. For every toilet built (estimated cost of Rs 10,000) Rs 4,500 will go out from the NREGA kitty. The mandatory 60:40 labour-to-material ratio will be maintained at the gram panchayat level.
Five Critiques that Often Come the NREGA Way......And a reality check
1) NREGA's making farming unviable
IN A WAY, YES. But that's only in areas where the actual agri wages are lower than what the state guarantees as minimum. Available research indicates that trends of reduced labour force in agriculture precede MGNREGA. The real culprit could be elsewhere: high non-farm wages. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, the decline in agriculture labour as a share of total economic activity trend is since 2004, two years before MGNREGA.
2) Stay home, draw unemployment allowance
Nothing's further from the truth. NSS data notes that around 19% of the rural households sought but did not get employment from June 2009 to July 2010. Now if an applicant is not provided employment within 15 days of receipt of his application or from the date on which the employment has been sought, he/she is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance. This is a provision that's honoured mostly in its breach because the onus to provide the allowance is on the state.
3) Assets built under NREGA are not durable
Partly, yes. As late as 2011, the World Bank noted that he objective of asset creation runs a very distant second to the primary objective of employment. The main culprit here is the lack of planning. Yet, there are states that have worked around this. For instance, MP and Maharashtra encourages building kuchcha roads under NREGA. This is then black-topped using funds from the Chief Minister's Gram Sadak Yojana.
4) It was supposed to make panchayats work, but NREGA has only decentralised corruption
Yes & no. NREGA has transferred unprecedented resources to panchayats but lack of training and zero investment in capacity building has muddled the scene.Vigilance and monitoring committees haven't taken off. But NREGA 2.0 envisages certification of the accounts of gram panchayats through a district panel of chartered accountants. So there will be a psychological pressure to bring in more accountability and transparency.
5) After 7 years, NREGA has run its course ...
No. While fingers point to scams and low-quality assets, few look at the ancillary effects. For one, the concept of minimum wages is a tangible reality in Indian villages, thanks to NREGA. Also, the programme has encrusted the idea of wage parity: In 2011-12, around Rs 12,000 crore was spent on wages for women and around 50% of the total persondays generated have been by women. Caste equations have been altered irrevocably, distress migration has come down
Skill Training: The logical next step, from manual to skilled. One person from each household that completes 100 days of work will be trained under NRLM on a range of skills like carpentry.
CAG Audit: An annual CAG audit - limited to the utilisation of NREGA funds - will help bring in more transparency. This year's report will be in by November, to be submitted to Parliament by December.
END to Minimum Wage Row: The AP High Court ruling that NREGA payments below state minimum wages amounted to forced labour had put GoI in a quandary. The ministry will now amend the NREGA Act to put an end to the controversy. Safeguards to ensure that states don't arbitrarily jack up minimum wages will be put in place.
MoRD funds for MoPR: The rural development ministry will transfer 1% of its entire budget of Rs 99,000 crore to the panchayati raj ministry for capacity building and training of panchayats. This, it hopes, will bring in a sea change in NREGA implementation at the ground level.
Rural Sanitation: NREGA funds will be deployed to promote rural hygiene. For every toilet built (estimated cost of Rs 10,000) Rs 4,500 will go out from the NREGA kitty. The mandatory 60:40 labour-to-material ratio will be maintained at the gram panchayat level.
Five Critiques that Often Come the NREGA Way......And a reality check
1) NREGA's making farming unviable
IN A WAY, YES. But that's only in areas where the actual agri wages are lower than what the state guarantees as minimum. Available research indicates that trends of reduced labour force in agriculture precede MGNREGA. The real culprit could be elsewhere: high non-farm wages. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, the decline in agriculture labour as a share of total economic activity trend is since 2004, two years before MGNREGA.
2) Stay home, draw unemployment allowance
Nothing's further from the truth. NSS data notes that around 19% of the rural households sought but did not get employment from June 2009 to July 2010. Now if an applicant is not provided employment within 15 days of receipt of his application or from the date on which the employment has been sought, he/she is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance. This is a provision that's honoured mostly in its breach because the onus to provide the allowance is on the state.
3) Assets built under NREGA are not durable
Partly, yes. As late as 2011, the World Bank noted that he objective of asset creation runs a very distant second to the primary objective of employment. The main culprit here is the lack of planning. Yet, there are states that have worked around this. For instance, MP and Maharashtra encourages building kuchcha roads under NREGA. This is then black-topped using funds from the Chief Minister's Gram Sadak Yojana.
4) It was supposed to make panchayats work, but NREGA has only decentralised corruption
Yes & no. NREGA has transferred unprecedented resources to panchayats but lack of training and zero investment in capacity building has muddled the scene.Vigilance and monitoring committees haven't taken off. But NREGA 2.0 envisages certification of the accounts of gram panchayats through a district panel of chartered accountants. So there will be a psychological pressure to bring in more accountability and transparency.
5) After 7 years, NREGA has run its course ...
No. While fingers point to scams and low-quality assets, few look at the ancillary effects. For one, the concept of minimum wages is a tangible reality in Indian villages, thanks to NREGA. Also, the programme has encrusted the idea of wage parity: In 2011-12, around Rs 12,000 crore was spent on wages for women and around 50% of the total persondays generated have been by women. Caste equations have been altered irrevocably, distress migration has come down
gud explanation..thanks
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