NEW DELHI: The status of registration of households in Maharashtra and Bihar under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Scheme is extremely poor, while it is good in Madhya Pradesh.

Of the total registered households in Madhya Pradesh, 96.8 per cent have received job cards, according to "Wada Na Todo Abhiyan," a conglomerate of civil society organisations that are putting pressure on the Government to consider its commitments to the poor as well as the Poorest Area Civil Society (PACS). Samarthan took the responsibility of carrying out the report. Similarly, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh are also among the better performing with 90.4 and 91.5 per cent registered households receiving job cards.

Maharashtra was found to be the lowest at 26.4 per cent and Bihar at 44.6 per cent. However, the availability of job cards and their proper usage has emerged as a major problem, with reports of people being charged money for them.

The number of jobs provided was almost the same as jobs demanded. It was observed in all the States under study that people were not actually applying or demanding jobs as a right. Invariably, in all the States, the works were being undertaken by panchayats and other agencies like any other developmental work. People were being absorbed simply because both resources as well as work were available in the village.

As far as resources received by the State and the utilisation was concerned, Madhya Pradesh was found to be the best performing among the six States. It got about 50 per cent of the cumulative resources released to the six States. It was the only State where almost 90 per cent works were being undertaken by panchayats. In the other States, the departments were implementing most of the works. Very few works were being undertaken by the panchayats. The fund released per registered household was low in Maharashtra.

Payment of wages

In all the States, about 70 per cent of the expenditure was on skilled and unskilled labour. In the five States where data was available, the payment on wages was about 70 per cent and that on material around 30 per cent.

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