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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

NREGA to focus on poorest 200 districts of the country by Devika Banerji

The government plans to focus its flagship rural jobs guarantee plan on the poorest districts of the country as there is a growing recognition within the administration that the scheme's nation-wide rollout has adversely impacted its performance.

Launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme promises at least 100 days of unskilled manual work in a year to each household in rural India. The scheme was initially introduced in 200 poorest districts and eventually extended to all of India's 600 districts.

"It was not right to extend the programme to all 600 districts of the country," Planning Commission member Mihir Shah told ET. "The scheme was meant to address distress migration from the most backward and poorest regions and that should have been maintained." In 2009-10, more than 283 crore person days of work was provided under the scheme. But this fell sharply to 257 crore in the following year, raising doubts that the programme has stagnated on the ground. The government is now desperately trying to add some fillip to the programme.

"We are going to revamp the scheme in various ways and one way is to increase our focus on the most vulnerable states without diluting the effect of the scheme in other states," said D K Jain, joint secretary in the ministry of rural development. The revamp, which will include wide-ranging administrative reforms to address issues of corruption, delayed wage payments cus attention only on strengthening the institutional arrangement for better delivery of the scheme in select districts.

It has asked state governments use 6% of the corpus to build institutional capacity including implementing the bank correspondent model, but it may allow higher amounts to states with poorest districts in the future. The proposed overhaul of the scheme aims to set up a multi disciplinary Technical Support Group for every aquifer, which is roughly a cluster of panchayats covering 500 households or a milli watershed.

The government is also likely to expand the scope of works under the scheme to accommodate state specific rural activities like horticultural, organic farming, animal rearing activities. Activities under the scheme are currently restricted to drought proofing and small village infrastructure projects like rural roads. and poor quality of works, is likely to be concentrated on the poorest 200 districts.

"It is true that the implementation and impact of the scheme has diluted itself after it was expanded," said a rural development ministry official form a northern state. "There are many other reasons but expanding it has not helped. Some districts just don't need the scheme." Independent analysts like Vijay Shankar, a member of grassroots organization Samaj Pragati Sahyog, endorse the move to refocus the scheme.

"Universalizing the scheme in all districts has affected its quality. Focusing on poorest districts is a step in the right direction," said Shankar. "The resources could have been used to improve the monitoring and administration in needy districts and go for targeted intervention in states where the demand is low."

The government will initially fo-cus attention only on strengthening the institutional arrangement for better delivery of the scheme in select districts.


It has asked state governments use 6% of the corpus to build institutional capacity including implementing the bank correspondent model, but it may allow higher amounts to states with poorest districts in the future. The proposed overhaul of the scheme aims to set up a multi disciplinary Technical Support Group for every aquifer, which is roughly a cluster of panchayats covering 500 households or a milli watershed.

The government is also likely to expand the scope of works under the scheme to accommodate state specific rural activities like horticultural, organic farming, animal rearing activities. Activities under the scheme are currently restricted to drought proofing and small village infrastructure projects like rural roads.