Photo Source: Ministry of Rural Development, GOI |
Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is another such historic anti-poverty policy
step that India has laid down in the year 2005, which came in force in 2006. It
addresses the issue of India’s massive rural unemployment challenge by creating
a right-based framework and guaranteeing 100 days of wage-employment to a rural
household, whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work. It makes
government accountable for providing employment to those who ask for it and
guarantees right to employment. In the larger context, it aims at enhancing
livelihood security, social protection and capital asset creation to develop
long term sustainable model for local and rural economy of India.
MGNREGA began its
journey with 200 most distressed districts of India, and within this short span
of 7 years time till 2013, it has covered all the 644 districts with a massive
expansion across 6576 blocks and 778134 villages. The average wage per day per
person is Rs 132.6. The All India minimum average daily wage rates in different
occupation in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors also have gone
high substantially. But MGNREGA has ensured to give equal wage to both men and women,
which so far was unimaginable in rural India. Such increase in wage rates has helped
to boost the consumption pattern in rural India. Thus according to NSSO
estimates the rural MPCE has gone high from Rs 579.17 in 2004-05 to Rs 953.05
in 2009-10 and then to Rs 1287.17 in 2011-12. The food expenditure share has gone
down to 53%, with 10%, 8%, 6% and 8% in cereal, milk & milk products,
vegetables and beverages & processed food. While in non-food category, the
share is almost equal for major items like clothing (8%), medical (7%) and
education (7%). This is an encouraging scenario reflecting better living
standard in rural India. The rural poverty ratio in India has also gone down to
25.70% (2166.58 lakhs persons) in 2011-12 from 33.8% (2782.1 lakhs) in 2009-10
and 42% (3258.1 lakhs) in 2004-05. MGNREGA is the first ever act globally which
guarantees employment at an unprecedented scale, touching to 732 lakhs rural
population by the year 2013-14. It targets the most vulnerable and marginalized
sections where women share almost 50% (351 lakhs), SCs share 23% (167 lakhs)
and STs share 18% (129 lakhs) of total employment.
With such scale and
coverage, MGNREGA certainly has penetrated the challenge of unemployment in
rural India. But while critiquing many are of the opinion that MGNREGA has
failed utterly in asset creation and has not optimally achieved the objective
to strengthen natural resource management through works that address cases of
chronic poverty like drought, deforestation, soil erosion, and to have a long
term sustainable development frame. The total sanctioned work under MGNREGA in
2012-13 was 70.50 lakhs, of which only 10.21 lakhs (15%) projects are completed;
where works like water conservation constitutes 60%, irrigation 12%, rural
connection 17%, land development 8% and rural sanitation 0.22%. It is also
being argued that as the scheme targets the unskilled workers, who henceforth do
not develop any skill for their future workforce participation. Therefore to
make it more useful, the workforce can be exposed to certain skill development
programme, which later can be used at least for self-employment opportunities. In
terms of financial leakages, it is being argued and verified by CAG reports
that there is large scale of misappropriation of MGNREGA funds across some
states in India. The states therefore need to be highly vigilant and pro-active
as the expenditure of the scheme is incremental. For example in 2012-13, the
total fund allocation has gone high to Rs 39735.4 crores from Rs 37072.7 crores
in 2011-12 (7% rise by an year) with wage expenditure alone sharing around 75%.
There are also serious problems of state-level delivery in wage and employment
days, and there exists huge inter-state variation in the performance outcome of
MGNREGA. Thus household employment in the year 2012-13 was highest in Tamil
Nadu with 64.8 lakhs and lowest in Punjab with 1.7 lakhs. The women share in
employment in the same year was 94% in Kerala and 19% in Uttar Pradesh with
national average of 53%. Thus both social and financial audits need to be more
rigorous and regular along with the role of states at implementation level. Finally
to attain optimum development outcome from MGNREGA as one of the most
successful right-based employment policies in the world, it may need certain
revision at structural level by incorporating more voices of rural India.
Rakhee Bhattacharya
·
Annual Reports, Ministry of Rural
Development, GOI
·
NSSO reports, Ministry of Statistics and
Programme Implementation, GOI
·
Annual Reports, Ministry of labour, GOI
·
Press Notes, Planning Commission, GOI
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