The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : NREGS helps to increase agriculture productivity

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Sunday, Feb 10, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

NREGS helps to increase agriculture productivity

N.J. Nair

Elimination of middlemen, increased participation of women

Men and women receive equal wages
Contractors eliminated

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Elimination of middlemen, increased participation of women and creation of sustainable projects on land, water and biomass have been cited as some of the highlights of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) being implemented in Palakkad and Wayanad districts.

An analysis of the scheme by the Centre for Rural Management points outs that major defects identified in the execution of other employment programmes are almost absent in the NREGS.

The report, submitted to the Union Ministry for Rural Development, says the achievements are mainly due to the presence of vibrant Panchayati Raj institutions, especially grama panchayts, and the experience gained through decentralised planning during the past one decade.

Positive results

Men and women labourers receive equal wages, contractors are religiously eliminated and use of machinery is limited to the minimum. One of the positive results of the elimination of contractors is that no serious muster roll manipulations have been reported.

Participation of women workers is much beyond the 33 per cent statutory provision and women Kudumbasree activists have played a major supervisory role in executing the works.

Previous employment-generating programmes had created durable assets, mainly at the expense of generating employment. The introduction of NREGS has shifted the priority from rural connectivity to long-term sustainable projects on land, water and biomass. Interventions under the scheme have helped to raise water table, increase water conservation and agriculture productivity and take up afforestation works.

Though there was a delay in implementing the scheme, it has succeeded in providing 100 days’ of employment to 99,450 households in both districts and turned out to be a better strategy to address poverty than its predecessor schemes. Considering the improvement in annual family income, 14 per cent of the beneficiary households in Palakkad and 13 per cent in Wayanad could cross the limit of Rs.22,000.

Flaws

A number of flaws have been identified in the execution. NREGS does not have a synergy with other rural development programmes. Lack of a scientific and realistic labour budgeting, social auditing, preparation and use of a district perspective plan, poor coordination with line departments and agencies during plan formulation and execution and failure to conduct social audit have been cited as some of the lapses.

Potential threat

The State government has to strive hard to break the contractor-bureaucrat nexus to implement the scheme and the same lobby could again pose a potential threat in future. Political parties should think of setting up field-level monitoring committees for initiating corrective steps and a tripartite communication link involving grama panchayats, banks and workers should be set up for improving the efficiency.

The report has stressed the need for improving documentation. Non-availability of designated banks at the localities, difficulties in opening zero-balance accounts and bouncing of cheques presented for payment too will have to be addressed.

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