Some measures for enhancing the efficacy of NREGA
This article talks about the ways and means to enhance the National Rural Employee Guarantee Programme and suggests ways and means to make it more effective to solve to problems facing the country and to increase its return on investment.
THE NATIONAL Rural Employment Guarantee Act, now renamed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is a flagship program of the UPA government and aims at enhancing the livelihood security and purchasing power of people in rural areas by guaranteeing hundred days of employment in a financial year to volunteers who are able and willing to do manual work. The Act came into force in February 2006 and started with 200 districts and within two and a half years it has spread its branches to the rest of the country. While critics have lambasted the scheme as being a drain on the exchequer and populist to the extreme, and an obvious throwback to the pre-liberalisation days, the NREGA is already silencing them and bringing about a silent revolution in rural areas and has already even begun to make a major dent on poverty reduction despite its uneven progress.
In this article, we propose some very important enhancements to the NREGA with a view to enhancing its effectiveness, and help the country reap the rewards of this scheme much more quickly and produce a greater and quicker return on money spent. These proposed enhancements will also help bring in greater accountability and transparency into the scheme and boost rural infrastructure both in the long-term and in the short-term.
Institution of a nodal agency
The Supreme Court has recently expressed the need for the establishment of a nodal watchdog and an agency to oversee the implementation of the NREGA. We can argue that this proposal would be of utmost importance in giving a much-needed central direction to the scheme and ensuring that it benefits trickle down to the intended beneficiaries in a time-bound manner.
The nodal agency can serve as an ombudsman and help in the process of identifying assets that need to be created as a part of the scheme. It will also carry out research on key aspects of the program and help identify best practices on a continuous basis. It can also help disseminate information about best practices to other regions and help provide strategic consulting to specific regions based on their unique problems and needs. This will ensure that all learnings are documented continuously and are used to further improve the program from time to time. Nodal agencies will preferably be set up at a state level also, so that this exercise can be carried out at a national and at a state level. The nodal agency will also play a key role in identifying the interlinkages with other schemes and play a critical part in interacting with other departments.
Emphasis on Asset creation
The emphasis of the NREGS besides employment creation needs to be asset creation .i.e. creation of permanent assets as has already been stressed in various quarters. This is of particular importance to long-term poverty reduction: as the economic conditions of villages improve, less and less people will opt for the NREGA and the money saved can, in turn be used to build assets in other areas. The assets must be built taking into account the needs to the region in question, and only a bottom-up approach will work here. The list of assets that need to be built needs to be identified at the lowest possible level. The steps to do this should ideally be as follows:
(a) Identify projects by talking to villages and panchayats - a list needs to be arrived at taking into the account the needs of a particular region or village. It can also ensure that villagers get what they need. Thus, solutions addressing the problems of a region will be provided.
(b) Build up a list of projects a village, taluk, state and a national level based on the requirements of a village or region so that projects can be monitored at all levels. Targets can also be factored into Five year plans for better monitoring and tracking.
(c) Key performance indicators must also be defined for each project.
The advantage of this is that it allows for a better comparison between plans and actual performance. It will also minimize corruption at all levels. It will also help the national economy greatly by leading to all round economic growth, greater tax collections and a better ROI on the project. The steps listed above will also enhance accountability and reduce corruption.
Incorporation of targets in Five-year plans
Ideally, infrastructure targets as a part of the NREGA need to be built into five years plans as this can help better monitoring, tracking and implementation. These targets can be fixed taking into account both assets which have been identified for creation and additional target which can be fixed based on the previous years actual achievements.
Interlinkages with other schemes
We must emphasize that the NREGA must be interlinked with other schemes currently being implemented by the central government for maximum efficacy. A list of such schemes include population control programs, the National rural health mission and watershed programs. In this connection, it would be useful to identify the key set of problems or constraints facing the nation and then work backwards to see how the NREGS can be combined with other schemes for maximum impact. Thus, on one hand the list of assets to be built in each region must be identified by talking to the locals and local authorities. On the other hand, the long-term constraints and challenges facing the region can also be identified and scaled up at the national level. This will help ensure that solutions implemented in one part of the country can be replicated elsewhere without any difficulty. A detailed review must be carried out by the nodal agency annually to make this happen. This two-pronged approach can greatly contribute to the success of the NREGA and ensure that it is in tandem with critical national requirements.
NREGA and population growth
We can argue here that the scheme need not necessarily be restricted to the poor alone. It can also utilize the services of better-educated people to spread awareness on key areas such as family planning. All this will be possible if there is better planning at a national level, state and district levels and short term and long term plans are drawn up for each region based on its specific requirements.
The NREGA can be linked to population control initiatives too as better population management is the crying need of the hour:
(a) Spreading awareness about family planning: This exercise can be particularly valuable and will naturally comprise of trained volunteers who can spread the message of family planning as the part of the NREGA.
(b) Adult literacy programs: Many states such as Karnataka have recently declared their intention to achieve 100% literacy by 2015. The NREGA can be a valuable tool in making this happen and the exercise can be driven by trained volunteers too.
(c) Special work package for senior citizens: This can be made a part of the NREGA program as such packages can play a crucial role in providing security to older citizens and can act as an incentive for long-term birth control.
Summary
The NREGA is a well-thought out program and only needs to be tweaked to provide better results. Since the 1930's, most economists have come to accept the fact that some government intervention is necessary if poverty is to be alleviated rapidly, and this reality cannot be avoided in a free market economy also. This is particularly true in countries like India where millions have yet to escape the wretched manacles of gut-wrenching poverty. What we need to ensure is that the NREGA is made a more effective, accountable activity with a greater emphasis on long-term poverty alleviation.
 | Previous Post |
Login
 Login through Social ID
|
Not finding what you are looking for? Search here.
