MGNREGAReport_P15043 (1)

MGNREGA Report
The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate
of tiny pushes of each honest worker. -Helen Keller
Nupoor Sinha(P15043)

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Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Jagdish Miniyar, Associated Commissioner
NREGA for providing me an opportunity to do my field immersion at “Commissionerate Office”
I sincerely thank Mr. Vipin Urade, EGS Manager at Bhandara District and Mrs. Tavkar, BDO
Bhandara, for their guidance and encouragement in carrying out this project work. I also wish to
express my gratitude to the officials and other staff members of Bhandara Block who rendered
their help during the period of my project work.
I also thank Mr. Prof. Prem Chander, Head of Field Immersion at Indian Institute of
Management Nagpur for providing privilege of working on this project and Mr. Shivaji S
Dhawad, In-charge Field Study Office at IIM-N for coordinating and for providing me the
opportunity to embark on this project.

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Executive Summary
A thorough study of MGNREGA was done with the commissioner and associate commissioner of
Nagpur division. To understand the operations of this scheme, deep analysis is done from the view
point of different stakeholders involved. Operations involving funding of the project to demand of
works and finally payment credit is covered in the report. There are three major concerns with the
implementation of this scheme at state level as well as central government level:
Delayed payment of wages.
Incompletion of work
Maintenance of 60:40 ratio for labour and material cost.
As a part of observations and problems analysis of these problems, field visits were done to the
block development office of Bhandara District and Katol Village which comes under Nagpur
District. In order to analyze data at state-level, deep analysis is done with the help of data available
on the website of NREGA. As a result, there are recommendations made for the improvement of
this scheme.

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Contents
Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2: ................................................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................. 21
Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................. 24
Chapter 6 ................................................................................................................................. 25
EXHIBITS ................................................................................................................................... 26

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Chapter 1
Introduction to the scheme:
MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act) is an Indian labour law and social
security measure that aims to guarantee the right to work. It was proposed in 2005 as NREGA and
renamed to MGNREGA in 2007. MGNREGA was implemented in phases, starting from February
2006 and at present it covers all districts of the country with the exception of those that have a
100% urban population. The Act provides a list of works that can be undertaken to generate
employment and also to create assets like water conservation, drought proofing, land development
and flood control and protection works. It was initiated with an objective of enhancing livelihood
security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial
year, to every household, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Other
objectives of MGNREGA are as follows:
• It aims at addressing causes of chronic poverty through the ‘works’ (projects) that are
undertaken, and thus ensuring sustainable development by creating durable assets (such as
roads, canals, ponds, wells)
• Strengthening of local bodies through giving a significant role to Panchayati Raj
Institutions (PRI’s) in planning and implementing these works.
• To prevent migration of rural people to urban areas for employment opportunities.
Funding of this scheme is shared between the centre and the states. There are three major items of
expenditure – wages (for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour), material and administrative
costs. The central government bears 100% of the cost of unskilled labour, 75% of the cost of semi-
skilled and skilled labour, 75% of the cost of materials and 6% of the administrative costs.
Financial allocations for the MGNREGA has increased steadily between 2006-2010 when it
touched nearly Rs. 40,000 crores. Since then, however, allocation for NREGA has stagnated just
below Rs. 40,000 crores. In 2014-15, allocations were cut down to less than Rs.30,000 crores. This
year finance minister announced a fund of 34,699 crores which can be enhanced by 5000 crores
with a tax buoyancy. For Maharashtra state, 1,087.96 lakh person days are allocated which
computes to an approximate figure of 1,967 crores. This is the second highest allocation after 2010
by central government. MGNREGA follows bottom up approach for planning which means it is a
demand driven scheme.
Key stakeholders in MGNREGA are Citizens, Gram Panchayat, Block Panchayat, Zilla Panchayat,
Workers, Implementing Agencies, Programme Officer, District Project Coordinator, State RD
Department and Ministry Of Rural Development (MORD will be responsible for ensuring timely
and adequate resource support).

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Other mandatory aspects of MGNREGA are at least one third beneficiaries have to be women;
work has to be provided within 5 km from the worker’s place; wages must be paid according to the
wages specified for agricultural laborers in the state under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, unless
the central government notifies a wage rate (this should not be less than Rs 60 per day). At present,
wage rates are determined by the central government but vary across states, ranging from Rs 135
per day to Rs 214 per day. It is fixed at Rs 181 for the state of Maharastra. In addition, the wages
has to paid to workers within 15 days from the day of closure of muster.
Decision making is highly decentralized in this case. Gram sabha must recommend the works that
are to be undertaken and at least 50% of the works must be executed by them. PRI is primarily
responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of the works that are undertaken. It’s
website is a public portal which makes it a transparent scheme, one can track down till a single
worker through the website. There are provisions for proactive disclosure through wall writings,
citizen information boards, Management Information Systems and social audits.
Social audits are a requisite tool under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to monitor and evaluate the works that are being carried out under
MGNREGA, in line with annual village plans. Under the Act every Gram Panchayat (village
council) should have an annual MGNREGA plan that includes a list of all the projects that need to
be carried out in the community. The resulting assets – such as wells, roads or irrigation systems –
should be used and accessed by the whole community. Under Section 17 of MGNREGA,
independent social audits of the Gram Panchayats should happen every 6 months, carried out by a
third party. These audits should be participatory, including all village members to ensure that
MGNREGA works are being carried out inclusively, fairly and in line with annual plans.
MGNREGA has its root associated with Maharastra as it was the first state to enact an employment
guarantee act (EGS) in the 1972. So, this state has taken forward its existing scheme to implement
the newly proposed act. It is implemented in 34 rural districts which consist of 351 talukas. In
addition to the existing clauses, state government has incorporated the following features in
MGNREGA:
• Employment is guaranteed for 365 days instead of 100 days as proposed in the original
scheme.
• It provides job guarantee to all the adult family members instead of just one household.
• There is an extra 3% fund allocation for administrative expenses by state government.
• Task-based wages system as opposed to fixed wages system stated in the original law.
• Funds for wages exceeding the proposed government scheme, State Government covers the
expenses. Source of these exceeding funds are professional tax.
Type of works allowed under MGNREGA:
1. Rural Connectivity
2. Water Conservation and Water Harvesting
3. Drought Proof

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4. Rural Drinking Water
5. Flood Control
6. Fisheries
7. Irrigation Canals
8. Irrigation Facilities To SC/ST/IAY/LR
9. Land development
10. Other works
11. Rural Sanitation
12. Renovation of Traditional Water Bodies
13. BNRGSK
14. Coastal Areas
Organization structure:
At state level, there is a planning department for EGS and MGNREGA which consists of Minister
and Secretary. Under the assigned minister, Commissionorate heads the team MGNREGA. As we
got to observe Nagpur division office in detail, there is a department dedicated to MGNREGA
which is headed by Commissioner MGNREGA Mr. Abhay Mahajan and there are six divisions
working under him:
1. Joint Commissioner of works: They look after work allocation and agriculture level
activities.
2. Assistant Commissioner Admin: All the administrative works including HR and trainings
are handled by this department.
3. Research Officer (Stats): He looks after the statistical data of the scheme uses this data
forecasting and modelling.
4. Assistant Commissioner village panchayat: This department heads the village panchayat
level works.
5. Assistant Director Accounts: All the monetary transaction goes through this department and
the issues related to delayed payments are looked after by them.
6. Steno: This department is dedicated for the documentation of ongoing activities.

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MGNREGA/EGS Planning
Department
Secretary (MGNREGA) Minister (MGNREGA)
Commissionarate
Comm. MGNREGA
Joint Comm.
(Works)
DY. Comm.
Nayab
Tehsildar
Agriculture
Asst.
Asst. Comm.
(Admin)
Steno
HR
Senior Clerk
Training
Coordinator
PM1
Research Officer
(Stat)
Asst. Comm.
(Village
Panchayat)
Steno
Typist
Clerk
Asst. Director
Accounts
Asst. Account
Officer
Banking
Advisor
PM2
PM3
Steno

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Functioning of MGNREGA:
As it is a demand driven scheme, according to the demands from workers, work is assigned after
getting approvals from BDO office. For being able to demand work, a person requires a job card.
There are three main eligibility criteria for job card:
• Applicant should belong to Below Poverty Line(BPL) category.
• He/She should belong to the village.
• He should be willing to do unskilled work.
These details are verified by the Gram Panchayat and within 15 days, a unique job number is
generated for the applicant a physical copy of this job card is delivered to the applicant if all the
details are verified in time. This job card is valid for 5 years. Job card records all the work done by
a worker along with the parts of muster roll numbers. The job card details are covered in Exhibit 2.
One can also link his/her Aadhaar Card with the job card. Once a person gets the Job card, he is
eligible to demand work. In case, he is not assigned any work within 15 days he will be eligible to
claim unemployment allowance which is approximately 50% of the wages as prescribed by
Government of India. There are approximately 2-3 major works kept on shelf for any sudden
demand usually. So, there are hardly any instances of unemployment allowances found in the state.
Once a worker has demanded for a job, he is required to submit his bank account details or aadhar
card linked to a bank account for the purpose of crediting the wages. So, these details are collected
by the Gram Rojgar Sevak. He then submits the details of workers demanding work at BDO. Then
musters are generated for one week based on the demand which gets approved by BDO Office and
then printed. This muster is used for the attendance and measurement of work done by workers.
Once the 7-day muster is complete, technical officers are required to measure the work. Generally
it is done for a group (a specific task will be assigned to a group of about 10) by measuring
difference in work level between day 0 and day 7, and average amount of work done by each
person is calculated. After the measurement, wages are calculated, filled in the muster roll and they
are sent to BDO office. A government officer verifies approximately 25% of work measurements.
Data entry team then enters muster roll data in the MIS system, a wage list has to be generated.
After the approval of wage list FTO is generated. One FTO can contain the details of more than
one muster roll. There are two digital signatories required to approve the FTO: Accountant and
Block Development Officer. After getting approvals from both the signatories, FTO is sent to the
bank and then wages are credited in the bank account specified during work demand or the account
linked with Adhaar Card of job applicant. The process is illustrated in the flow diagram below:

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Muster Roll Process Flow Diagram:
There are time limits specified for each of these tasks. Concerned authorities are expected to
adhere to these timelines which is recorded in muster roll tracker (Exhibit 4). Also, the fund flow is
done through eFMS (Electronic Fund Management System) to eliminate cash handling and
Muster
Demand of work
Muster is generated
after work demand
comes in by
panchayat samiti
According to the
demand, work is
allocated to person
who demands work.
Muster Printing
Gram Rojgar Sevak
is responsible to get
the muster verified
and printed.
Work starts after
muster printing
Job Measurement
Technical officers
measure the work and
maintain the record
for each worker.
This record is
converted into wages
and sent back to BDO
FTO Generation
FTO is generated for
all the wages in a
muster.
It is approved by the
accountant and
signatories
Bank Approval
Verification of all
the details mentioned
in the FTO.
Money is credited in
the bank account of
worker.

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corruption associated with the same. State level eFMS system flows the required finances to taluka
level.
Wage distribution is then done through eFMS from Taluka. Apart from wage list generation, there
is material cost which is to be accounted for. According to the scheme, MGNREGA follows credit
system for most of the village level works. However, there are some suppliers who demand
advance payment for the materials. There is provision to obtain about 25% of the total projected
expenditure as advance amount. A similar process to wage is followed for generating the FTO for
material cost. Even it requires the approval of two signatories, but there has to be a ratio to be
maintained which is 60:40 for material/labour costs at Gram Panchayat level on annual basis.
Projects related to other line agencies require this ratio maintenance at district level. This ratio was
introduced to encourage non-mechanized work. To maintain the purpose of ratio, Government has
enforced the rule by not sanctioning any material cost unless it fulfills the 60:40 rule for any GP.
Irrigation Well projects require more skilled labour than unskilled, and will provide high value for
small farmers, which is why is it exempted from this ratio for the time being. But the average ratio
at GP level has to be maintained on annual basis by encouraging to take more unskilled works.
There is one more rule for encouraging the agriculture work in the villages: 60% of works for any
block should be contributing towards agriculture-based benefits, which includes irrigation canals,
and irrigation wells etc. whereas 40% of works can contributed towards development of village in
terms of infrastructure for example, construction of roads, cattle sheds etc.
For, the completion of project there are three prerequisites:
• It should be complete physically.
• It should be complete physically: All the associated payments has to be made for both
wages and materials.
• Considering the quality of work, it is required to have a complete status defined by
technical officer, who issues a Completion Certificate.
It is the responsibility of Gram Panchayat to plan the works required to be done beforehand. DPC
(District Program Coordinator) prepares the labour Budget in the month of December every year
for the next financial year containing the details of anticipated demand for unskilled manual work
in the district and the plan for engagement of workers in the works covered under the program.
Panchayat selects the project and gets the approval. The estimate is given to panchayat by DPC and
according to this estimate they are required to get the projects sanctioned. Technical sanction of
project costing upto 25 lakhs is given by Taluka level technical officer and administrative approval
is given by Tehsildar/BDO. Above 25 lakhs, it is the sent to district level office to get the sanction.
This document involves the abstract of material and skilled labour used for the purpose of
maintaining the skilled/unskilled proportion. This is informed to the PRIs and then demand is
fulfilled as shown below. This data is fed into MIS System for record keeping and building upon it.

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Chapter 2:
Problem Statement:
Despite the well organized structure of MGNREGA there have been growing criticism about the
large fund allocation for MGNREGA scheme by NDA Government. As a result of which fund
allocations have been declining. Following are the main issues which have raised a lot of questions
on efficiency of this scheme:
1. Delay in payment of wages:
Most states have failed to disburse wages within 15 days as mandated by MGNREGA including
Maharastra. In addition, workers are not compensated for a delay in payment of wages. Reasons
are as follows by primary observations:
• Delay at GRS Level: After work completion, 2 days are assigned for the GRS to submit the
completed muster, but due to several projects going on under GRS, it becomes extremely
difficult for him/her to physically commute for the purpose. Some of the GRS are very old
and it becomes even worse for them to keep up with the pace during peak season (after the
main crops are harvested). The incentive they get is 2.25% of budget allocated for the GP.
Sometimes one GP has more than one village in the radius of around 5kms which makes
the job more challenging. In addition to these issues, there are 2 villages in Bhandara
district which comes under naxalite area. It is extremely difficult to penetrate such areas
and get the wages of those workers in time. GRS also faces issues while filling muster rolls
and allocation of groups
• Technical Officers: According to the information we received, there is a major lack of
resources as 3 technical officers are assigned over 20 GPs. Muster completion dates are
almost similar for them. So, it becomes a bottleneck of this whole process.
• Data Entry Operators: 3,00,000 data entry is done per day in the peak seasons in Bhandara
District with a manpower of just 4. It is a high responsibility job and requires precision.
They also face network issues as infrastructure is not at the required level and NREGA is a
vast website. They are facing frequent server side issues.
• Multiple Bank Account holders: Some of the villagers have got different accounts for LPG
subsidy and loans, and they have their aadhaar card linked with a third account. This is a
major issue for delayed payments. So, it is due to lack of awareness among villagers.

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Delay of Payments: Analysis
To find out the root cause for delay of payments analysis has been done on the payment system and
the muster tracking system. As per the information (Refer exhibit: Table-Delayed Payment)till now
in 2015-16 the total amount involved in delayed payment was around 70% of the total amount
disbursed for the payments. In the 2014-15 this was 73%. Most of the delayed payments are
happening between 15-60 days(90%-refer Refer exhibit: Table-Delayed Payment) and in districts
like “AHMEDNAGAR” and “SATARA” it is in very high proportion. The main reason for the
delay payment is by the delay in processing muster rolls. NREGA has implemented the a way to
track all the muster in each district, block and GP which is pending for more than 15 days there by
giving priority for the same. From the sample data of pending muster rolls it can be seen that
pending musters in the starting months are very less by count(Refer exhibit: Table- Pending Muster
rolls).
To find out the bottleneck in the muster roll tracking process, entire process has been divided in to
6 stages to analyse the available data easily(Refer exhibit: Table- Muster Roll Tracking System)
Stage1: Delay in the process of Data entry in MIS system
This will include the process of filling attendance in muster and the submission of same by
GRS into block level, then the measurement of work by contract officer and filling the same into
muster and MB(Material Book) then verification and filling these information into MIS
As per State NREGA policy, state has determined a time limit 8 days for this entire process.
Stage2: Delay in the process of Wage list Generation
This process will include wage list generation for labor and materials as per the muster and
MB. Wage will be calculated as per the measurements filled by the site engineer.
Time limit- 2 days
Stage3: Delay in the process of FTO (Fund Transfer Order) generation
After the wage list generation FTO will be generated as per the labors’ linked bank
accounts. The major problem arise during this process is mismatch of bank account details.
Stage 4: Approval of FTO by 1st
signatory.
Stage 5: Approval of FTO by 2nd
signatory.
Time limit for stage 3, 4, 5- 2 days.
Analysis is done on the stage 1-5 excluding Stage 6 which is processing of FTOs by banks.
Delay in each stages has been found out for every districts in Maharashtra by comparing the date
of closure of muster roll and subsequent stages.( Refer exhibit- Table- MUSTER vs DELAY).
Total delay has been found out for the each muster in every districts and the average of delay days

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(Including allowed time limit) for each stage is also fount out. It was found out that musters with
delay has been varying according to the records in each stage. A separate analysis on this also can
be found in the tables of each district.
The combined analysis of all districts are added below (Exhibit- File-MusterVsDelay).
Allowed No.of days for Stage1=8
days >20
Allowed No.of days for Stage2=2
days >10
Allowed No.of days for
Stage3,4,5=2days >10

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From the combined table it is evident that delay is severe in all stages but it is more severe in the
stage 3,4,5. Where it is supposed to take only 2 day time limit, in the state average it is more than
10 days.
On the other hand primary observation regarding the delay due to no.of records in the muster does
not have much impact on the delay days. As the delay is happening more towards records less than
50.
Stage 1 includes 4 processes altogether, and the delay on these process is not captured. If that can
be found out it will give clear insight on the delay happening at the GRS, site engineer, and MIS
officers which was evident in the primary observations.
2. Large number of incomplete works:
There has been a delay in the completion of works under MGNREGA and inspection of projects
has been irregular. Implementing agencies were able to complete only 98 lakh works out of 296
lakh works. As Table 2 shows, a large percentage of works remain incomplete under MGNREGA
and the work completion rate appears to be decreasing in recent years. Reasons for incompletion
are as follows:
• Physical Completion and Financial Completion should be done before getting completion
certificate (CC). Most of the times it is paused due to delayed payments of wages and/or
material payments. There are some instances where concerned authorities are negligent
towards getting the CC even when task is already completed especially if they belong to
other agencies like agriculture or forest department. Also, concerned person will sometimes
hesitate to issue the CC if the work is completed under the previous employee.
• No Demand leads to incompletion sometimes. For example, works like road construction
involves more physical work compared to tree plantation and will be a less preferred job. If
the workers are assigned to these jobs, they might not show up at work site which is a
reason for incompletion. Also works like canal renovation yields less wage rate compared
to wages in orange fields, they might leave the work in the middle for a better oppurtunity.
• A significant number of times, 60:40 ratio of labour/material cost has stopped the progress
of work especially is the stage of work comprises skilled part.
• For long projects, there are rate differences for technical and administrative expenses which
hinders the completion.
• Some of the projects are long term like tree plantation and irrigation well, so 3-5 years are
required for their completion. Therefore, unless all the financial and physical completion is
made it will be showing as incomplete project.

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Analysis:
Analysis has been made based on the type of work and the year in which it is started. It is observed
that that the about 48% of works are in initial stages with completion rate of less than 25%.
Specifically majority of drought proofing works are in initial stages while work related to fisheries
are in final stages. About 10% of works are in final stages which includes completed works for
which issue of CC is pending. Approximately 40% of the incomplete works are the ones started in
years 2011 and 2012. (Refer to file Percentage Completion)
First the data has been categorized based on the type of work. Prefix mentioned in the work code is
used for the purpose. Then the percentage of work completed is calculated as total incurred
expenditure as percentage of estimated expenditure.
• Analysis has been made on the date received from the MGNREGA office. The data and
analysis has following constraints:
• It consists of both suspended works and ongoing works whose deadline is not yet met.
• Analyzed data consists of only 2,85,903 entries, while the total incomplete or suspended
works are about 3.3Lakhs.
• Only data with prefix like RC-Rural Connectivity are mentioned in the work code are
considered.
• Data is expected to be up to date till only August.

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• Some mismatches are found where the expenditure in the excel sheet shows zero
expenditure on material, while the website shows expenses made on the work.
3. Management of 60:40 Labour/Material Cost Ratio:
For every GP is mandatory to maintain the 60:40 ratio for labour/ material cost. If it is not done,
the account for this particular GP is freezed and they will have to compensate it by increasing the
labour cost.
There are a few projects which require more skilled work than unskilled/semi-skilled like irrigation
wells. It is exempted from the rule for the time being but this rule makes it difficult for a GP to
maintain the ratio.
In addition to this, there is agriculture/non-agriculture work ratio to maintain. In some cases, GPs
require more non-agriculture work as they are not agriculturally developed villages. Non-
agriculture projects require more material costs in most of the cases.
Due to this, work is carried forward to the next year as spillover work. Some of the suppliers are
not paid completely for their complete supplies.
Analysis:
Analysis has been made to find the number of blocks and panchayats violating the 60:40 ratio.
Data for the analysis has been obtained from the website. It is observed that 81 blocks and 5578
panchayats violate the required ratio. Nashik and Satara are the districts with highest number of 8
blocks violating the ratio. Nashik, Satara, Buldhana, Jalna, Yavatmal are the districts with high
number of GP’s about 300 each which did not follow the specified ratio. About 40% of GP’s have
material ratio between 40-60%, 35% of GP’s fall in 80-100% material ratio. (Refer to file 60:40)

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Non payment of unemployment allowances and delay compensation: Most states
do not pay an unemployment allowance when work is not given on demand. The non-issuance of
dated receipts of demanded work prevents workers from claiming an unemployment allowance.
Major reasons:
• It requires a new FTO. The process from FTO generation is repeated which takes time.
• Inaccurate bank details lead to rebounding of cheque.
Site visit Observations:
BHANDARA:
• Continuous follow up on the muster processing from block level made the bhandara block
one of the most efficient in the district.
• The inadequate staffing of technical officers is one of the problem for delay of payments.
• There are many works going on and the work vs officers ratio is no different from the
blocks which are not having that much demand of work.
• Maintaining different officers for NREGA scheme would make the process to happen
smoothly.
KATOL Village: Nagpur

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• An extreme contrast situation compared to bhandara block as the work demanded is very
less.
• Labors are not utilizing their job cards efficiently as the job card holders with 100 days of
work are very less in number.
• The shelf work find out by the GPs and blocks are are not enough to attract workers.

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Chapter 3
Recommendations:
Delayed Payments: There are root level problems with payment systems, following are the
suggestions which will help in eliminating this issue:
• Mandating a single bank account
• Making FTO Processing much faster by implementing a continuous tracking system.
• Digitization of muster printing and submission: As every GP is assigned with one computer
and an operator, this person should be trained to enter muster details and email the same to
BDO office. Or it can be further simplified if a fax machine is provided in places where
internet connectivity is an issue. This would help in naxalite areas as well.
• Muster dates should be assigned such that all the musters are not completed on a single day.
This would help in timely measurement by technical officers.
• For server issues, there should be a state-level website with sufficient server capacity.
Incomplete Works:
• Since states are at various stages of socio-economic development, they have varied
requirements for development. Therefore, state governments should be allowed to
undertake works that are pertinent to their context. There should be more emphasis on
skilled and semi-skilled work under MGNREGA.
• In addition to this, a greater emphasis on convergence with other schemes such as the
National Rural Livelihood Mission, National Rural Health Mission, etc. has to be
encouraged. GPs should start a project with a clear vision about fruits/agriculture seasons.
• Work completion targets should be defined in a percentage projection completion standard.
For example, tree plantation requires 5 years of time. So, each year’s target should be 1/5th
of the total project completion instead of 100% from the first year.
60:40 Ratio Maintenance:
• Some of the high-skill projects should be completely relieved from this ratio.
• This ratio should be mandated at block level so that GPs which require high skill labour are
compensated by the ones with semi-skill/unskilled labour.
• In villages like Katol, it is difficult to find demand as it is near Nagpur and provides better
daily wages. In order to solve this problem, season based wages should be provided to
ensure active participation of workers.

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Unemployment allowance and Delayed Compensation: Dated receipts for demanded work
should be issued so that workers can claim unemployment allowance. Funds for unemployment
allowance should be met by the central government. It is easier to automatically calculate the
unemployment allowance and delayed compensation through NREGA website. So, there should be
automated functionalities instead to going through muster process all over again.
Other Recommendations:
It infrastructure could be provided to each GP. Sometimes it is difficult to GRS to submit and
obtain new muster rolls, if various musters have different closing dates in a week. Also, there will
be demand on a daily basis, in which case new musters have to be printed on daily basis. This work
could be eased if required IT Infrastructure is provided at GP level. In addition the appointed
computer operator and the equipment provided could be used for various operations and schemes
rather than confining to MGNREGA. it is observed during the visit that many GP’s already have a
computer, an internet connection is the main thing that is yet to be provided.
Separate Work Force:
Separate work force can be appointed for each GP for improving the efficiency. Appointing one
technical officer to each GP can have high benefits. Various improvements that could possible with
a special officer include proper planning and execution of works such that the violation of 60:40
ratio will not be made. Integration with other government schemes could be made more effectively
which results in increase of number of assets created.
Social Impact:
In 2014, NDA government wanted to take this scheme down for its inefficiency. But there has been
improvement in the livelihood of rural population of India. According to India Human
Development Survey, which found that 14 million people escaped falling into poverty on account
of MGNREGA. Women have gained financial independence and households which is led by
women are highly benefitted by the scheme. Migration is restricted only to times of the year when
there is high construction demand in nearby cities. MGNREGA is also encouraging group working
abilities of workers to some extent as they know that their wages are dependent on each other.

23
Chapter 4
Learnings:
MGNREGA involves concepts of operations, finance and organizations in a rigorous way. As a
management student I have implemented the concepts of percentage project completion for
balancing the cash flows and on-paper completion. There have been instances where organizational
structure of MGNREGA has proved to be very efficient. The operations of project allocation to job
allocation are defined very accurately. However, there are issues at the lowest levels which can be
eliminated by more organized management.

24
Chapter 5
Future Effort:
There is a large scope for further root cause analysis. Various problems have been identified,
further research could be carried out on impact of each problem. Some districts with poor
performance could be selected to address the specific issues relating to it. Feasibility of each
recommendation could be analysed deeply.

25
Chapter 6
Evaluation of MGNREGA as an Immersion Partner:
In the short span of 12 days, we were able to understand the processes in NREGA and have made
required suggestions to a few issues faced. All the officials have helped us through the period.
Arrangement of field visit to Bhandara and Katol have been very helpful to understand root level
functionalities and issues. As it is a national scheme, there are a lot of inefficiencies at various
levels which can be addressed.

26
EXHIBITS
Exhibit 1:
Sample Job Card:

28
GLOSSARY:
PRI: Panchayati Raj Institution
DPC: District Programme Coordinator
GP: Gram Panchayat
GRS: Gram Rojgar Sevak
BDO: Block Development Officer
MIS: Management Information System
eFMS: Electronic Fund Management System
CC: Completion Certificate
FTO: Fund Transfer Order
References:
http://www.nrega.net/
http://www.mgnrega.co.in/political-background-and-the-plan.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act_2005
http://indianexpress.com/article/business/budget/despite-modi-criticism-jaitley-gives-nrega-a-
slight-nudge/
http://www.effective-states.org/issue-mgnrega/
http://nagarzp.gov.in/html_docs/MREGS.htm
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-on-guarantee-the-mgnregs-
funds/article7851658.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/data/mgnrega-reduced-poverty-empowered-women-
ncaer/article7530923.ecehttp://www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/?tag=mgnrega

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