NREGA : its status in rural development and poverty alleviation

1. NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT
GUARANTEE ACT (NREGA):
ITS STATUS IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT
AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION
Presented by:
Ashwini Kumar

2. POVERTY IN
INDIA

3. Definition.
Causes.
Consequences.
Rural Crisis.
Steps taken by Government
for eradication.

4.  In general, poverty can be defined as a situation when
people are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life.
 Internationally, Income of less than $ 1 per day per
person means extreme poverty.
 By this estimate 24% Indians are extremly poor.
 Standards of Planning Commission of India:
based on food requirements per day:
RURAL URBAN
2400 calories 2100 calories
based on Income :
Rs. 365.65 ( $ 7) per month

5.  Above mentioned poverty lines are described as starvation
lines.
 This income is bare minimum to support the food
requirements and does not provide much for the other basic
essential items like health, education etc.
 One half of India’s poor is located in the three
states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya
Pradesh.
???....??? …???
 Will the achievement of these Poverty
lines be enough for a nation to free itself
from Poverty?

7.  High level of dependence on primitive methods of agriculture
 High population growth rate
 High Illiteracy (about 35% of adult population)
 Regional inequalities
 Natural calamities
 Protectionist policies pursued till 1991 that prevented high foreign
investment

8.  number of suicidal cases of farmers
 starvation deaths
 impoverishments
 indebtedness

 hunger.
 Lack of income leads to malnutrition and hence gives rise to a
number of diseases which remain uncured due to poverty.
 Lack of food and health care due to low income/assets is
associated with the higher probability of a new born child dying
between birth and the age of one.

9. Major Rural crisis of the nation which need an immediate attention in
order to enable all the fundamental rights of a citizen are as
follows :
 Growing unemployment and underemployment.
 Falling purchasing power.
 Declining per capita availability of food grains.
 Reduced farm incomes and real wage growth.
 Indebtedness and land alienation, esp. for small and marginal
farmers.
 Deceleration in agricultural growth, productivity per worker and
rural non-agricultural employment growth.
 Slackening pace of poverty reduction and worsening poverty
amongst marginalized social groups and ethnic minorities.

10.  Microfinance.
 BPL – Below Poverty Line.
 Employment and Rural Development Policies :
 Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)
The scheme involves organisation of the poor into Self Help Groups (SHGs)
build their capacities through a process of social mobilization, their training,
selection of key activities, planning of activity clusters, creation of infrastructure,
provision of technology and marketing support, etc. Under the scheme focus is on
the group approach. However, individual Swarozgaris are also assisted.
 Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY)
It aims to provide assistance for construction / up gradation of dwelling units to
the Below Poverty Line (BPL) rural households, with special emphasis on SCs, STs
and freed bonded labour categories. A maximum assistance of Rs 35,000 per unit is
provided for construction in plain areas and Rs 38,500 per unit for hilly/difficult
areas.

11.  National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP)
It was launched with the aim to provide social assistance benefit to poor
households in the case of old age, death of primary breadwinner and maternity. The
programme supplements the efforts of the State Governments with the objective of
ensuring minimum national levels of well being and the Central assistance is an
addition to the benefit that the States are already providing on Social Protection
Schemes.
 Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP)
During the Eleventh Plan, the three area development programmes, namely,
Integrated Wasteland Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Programme
and Desert Development Programme have been integrated and consolidated into a
single programme called Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP).
This consolidation is for optimum use of resources, sustainable outcomes an
integrated planning.
The modified IWMP would adopt a three tier approach in which the upper
reaches which are mainly forested and hilly would be treated with the support of
Forest Department. For land situated intermediate slopes above the agriculture
lands, the IWMP would address all the necessary issues of land treatment by
adopting best possible options including cropping pattern, horticulture and agro-
forestry etc. In the lower tire, which are plains and mainly agricultural lands, the
IWMP would be working with the employment generating programme such as
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)

12. Wage Employment programmes in India

13. Modeling Policies

14. Traditional Model
Government
schemes or
legislation to
tackle poverty
PROBLEM:
POVERTY
Result or
Impact

15.  lack of awareness amongst local communities about
existence of government programmes
 dearth of community participation
 lack of planning
 creation of sub-standard quality of assets
 false muster rolls
 problems of payments
 contract system
 weak monitoring and verification systems
 absence of comprehensive data base
 multiple wage programmes running in parallel

16. LEGISLATION
Agricultural Urban poverty
No industry in
inadequacy rural areas
Rural
Lack of
PROBLEM 1 : PROBLEM 2: economy
Education
weakens
RURAL POVERTY MIGRATION
Growth in
unemployment Deterioration in urban
health settlements
REDUCTION IN POVERTY
AND MIGRATION

17. Company Name

18. The Employment Guarantee Act is a step
towards the right to work, as an aspect of the
fundamental right to live with dignity.

19. “ To a people famishing and idle, the only
acceptable form in which God could dare appear
was 'work and promise of food as wages. “
- Mahatma Gandhi

20.  Providing wage employment opportunities
 Creating sustainable rural livelihoods through
rejuvenation of natural resource base i.e.
augmenting productivity and supporting creation of
durable assets
 Strengthening rural governance through
decentralisation and processes of transparency and
accountability

21. • The National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act 2005 is a law whereby
any adult who is willing to do unskilled
manual work at the minimum wage is
entitled to being employed on local
public works within 15 days of
applying, with a guarantee of 100
days of unskilled manual work per
household per year

22.  Employment within 15 days of application.
 Unemployment allowance.
 Work within 5 kilometres.
 Minimum wages.
 Payment within 15 days.
 No gender discrimination.
 Basic worksite facilities.

23.  One of the main drivers of rural unemployment is the erosion of
livelihoods in Indian villages. A number of rural employment programmes
were launched by successive Governments of India over the years.
However, these programmes achieved only partial success. The threat of
collapse of the rural economy was increasingly becoming real. In this
context, NREGA has come at a crucial time as a novel solution.
 In 2005 UPA Government set up an apex body NAC( National Advisory
Committee) responsible for designing the precursor to NREGA. It was also
responsible for initiating the legislative process aimed at bringing it into
existence.
 NREGA was enacted on September 2005 in India. It was first brought into
force with effect from February 2006 in 200 of the most backward Indian
districts.

25. water conservation;
drought proofing ;
irrigation canals including micro and minor irrigation works;
provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households
belonging to the SCs and STs or to land of land reforms and
Indira Awas Yojana beneficiaries;
 renovation of traditional water bodies;
 land development;
 flood control and protection works;
 rural connectivity to provide all-weather access; and
 any other work which may be notified by the Central
Government in consultation with the State Government.

30. 2010-11

31. 2010-11

32.  Reports from various villages revealed that there has been more than 20
per cent reduction in the incidence of migration amongst children, who
move out to work in brick kilns and dhabas.
 School teachers report that NREGA had reduced migration by 10 to 20 per
cent and school enrolment and retention had improved by 25 per cent.
 This was largely because parents were staying back because of work
availability.

33. • only 36 per cent of all rural workers in
2004-05 in India were women.
• Women workers account for nearly half
of the workers employed in NREGA
works so far.
• Women’s involvement is much higher
than their overall work participation in
the southern states. This is especially
true in Kerala, where women’s
participation in paid work has
traditionally been low. Tamil Nadu,
which has had high women’s work
participation, shows even higher
involvement in NREGA, with women
accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the
work under this scheme.

34. • Not only does NREGA provide money incomes directly to those women
participating in it, in many states the wage delivery mechanism is linked to
the opening of post office or bank accounts. This involves the access of a
much greater number of women in institutional finance from which they
have been largely excluded.
• Intra-household gender relations are also likely to be affected.
• The states where NREGA has led to a significant increase in women’s paid
work, there are likely to be substantial social implications as well. These
would be in addition to other changes, such as the decline in distress
migration and the improvement in food consumption among certain
families.

37.  Increase in Agriculture Minimum Wages and wage earned per day and
annual income. Bargaining power of labor has increased.
 Earnings per HH has increased from Rs 2795 in 2006-07 to Rs 3150 in 2007-
08 to Rs 4060 in 2008-09 and about Rs 5000 in 2009-10.
 Financial Inclusion: 9.19 crore accounts opened.
 Distress migration has reduced in many parts.
 “Green Jobs” created as 70% works relate to water conservation, water-
harvesting, restoration, renovation and de-silting of water bodies, drought-
proofing, plantation & afforestation.

38.  Productivity effects of NREGA reported.
 Improvement in ground water.
 Improved agricultural productivity & cropping intensity
 Livelihood diversification in rural areas.
 Creation and repair of rural infrastructure like roads and water bodies.
 Retention of children in school and purchase of books for them.
 Greater interest in local area development due to flow of funds and village
meetings.
 Changing local dynamics in many places with the recognition by workers that
they are right holders.
 Expansion in membership and activities of workers’ and peasant organizations

41.  NREGA holds a huge promise for poverty reduction
with a supplementary average annual household
income of more than Rs 6000. for this, wages, work
days and aggregate expenditure on the Scheme should
be high if the Programme has to make any significant
dent on poverty. Creation of social and economic
infrastructure too would go a long way in reducing
poverty.
 But NREGA has failed to perform to the expectations.

42. The poverty reducing potential is severely undermined through:
 non-recognition of eligible persons as right holders;
 inability to make claims due to imposition of a host of arbitrary and
discretionary eligibility conditions;
 non-fulfilment of entitlements guaranteed under the Act, in particular days
of work and wages;
 restrictions on the nature of permissible works;
 absence of work in the most food-deficit rainy season due to focus on
manual labour and earth works

43.  Lack of professional staff
 Lack of proper project planning
 Bureaucratic resistance
 Lack of transparency
 Inappropriate rates of payments
 Curtailment of entitlements.

44. THE KEEPER: Jean Dreze, one of NREGA's incubators
“ Q. A few economists complain about the improper implementation of NREGA. What, in your
opinion, is the way to go about it? What are the real problems of implementation?
A. Our main concern should not be with the complaints of “a few economists”, but with those of millions of
workers. Their entitlements under the NREGA are routinely violated, whether it is the entitlement to work on
demand or to minimum wages or to payment within 15 days, or to basic worksite facilities.
For instance, in recent months there have been massive delays in wage payments around the country,
causing immense hardship to NREGS workers, but this is barely noticed in the corridors of power. Underlying
this state of affairs is the breakdown of grievance redress systems. All the grievance redress provisions of the
NREGA have been sidelined, including, for instance, the provisions for unemployment allowance, for penalties
on errant officials, for compensation in the event of delayed wage payments or for framing of Grievance
Redress Rules.
The Central and State governments don’t seem to be interested in making themselves accountable to the
people. “

45.  Information, education and communication
 Capacity building of the PRI staff and elected
members
 Recruitment of technical persons at GP level
 Diversification in the NREG works
 Supervision

46. There is no denying the fact that the NREGA is conceptually a
very important national programme initiated at the level of the
Central Government, but its record of implementation reveals that
there are widespread complaints of corruption and mishandling of
funds and very low level of utilisation of the budgeted provision.
It has, therefore, failed to impact on the poor rural households
and if deterioration is not checked, the programme will lose the
enthusiasm and momentum generated for it in 2006, describing it
as a revolutionary project to impact on the life of the poor.