INTRODUCTION:

The MGNREGA is the largest employment programmme in human history. The Act was launched on 2^nd February 2006 from Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh and initially covered 200 of the “poorest” districts of the country. The Act was implemented in phased manner; 130 districts were added from 2007 to 2008. With its spread to over 635 districts across the country now. The mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted by legislation on 25^th August 2005. This scheme provides a legal guarantee for at least one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any household who want ot work at minimum wage of INR 120 (160now) (US$2.20) per day in 2009 prices. The vital aim of the act is to improve the purchasing power of the rural people, it is no matter whether they are APL or BPL. In the Act Central Government meets the cost towards the payment of wages, 3/4^th of material cost and some percentage of administrative cost. State Governments meets the cost of unemployment allowance.

There are two crucial intentions of the scheme:

1. Rural development

2. Employment generation

The MGNREGA stipulates that works must be targeted towards a set of specific rural development activities such as: water conservation and harvesting of forests, rural connectivity, flood control and protection such as construction and repair of embankments, digging of new tanks/ponds, construction of small check dams and tree plantation.

FUNDAMENTAL PROVISIONS IN MGNREGA:

· The Gram Panchayat will issue a job Card.

· The job Card will bear the photograph of all adult members of the household willing to work underMGNREGA.

· A job Card holder may submit a written application for employment.

· Employment will be given within 15 days.

· Work should ordinarily be provided within 5 km radius of the village.

· Wages are to be paid according to the Minimum Wages Act 1948.

· At least one-third beneficiaries shall be women.

· Work site facilities such as crèche, drinking water, shade have to be provided.

MGNREGA (CSS) Expenditure on the scheme:

Table-1: Budget outlay and Expenditure on MNREGA:

YEAR	Budget outlay (In Crore)	Expenditure (In Crore)
2006-07	11300	8823.35
2007-08	12000	15856.89
2008-09	30000	27250.10
2009-10	39100	37905.23
2010-11	40100	39377.27
2011-12	40100	37548.79
2012-13	33000	-
2013-14	33000	-

Source: 12^th five year plan-Vol-2 MGNREGA Performance page-287

Table-2: Total outlay and wage Expenditure on MGNREGA

YEAR	Total Outlay (TO)	Wage Expenditure Percent of To)
2006-07	$2.5bn	66
2007-08	$2.6bn	68
2008-09	$6.6bn	67
2009-10	$8.68bn	70
2010-11	$8.91bn	71

Source: Ministry of Rural Development, Report MGNREGA, 2012

CAG’S REPORT ON MGNREGA:

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its performance audit of the implementation of MGNREGA has found “significant deficiencies” in the implementation of the act. The poorest of poor were not able to exercise their rights fully under the job guarantee act and several irregularities have been noticed in works and procedures under the government’s ambitious scheme. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report says that widespread instances of non-payment and delayed payment of wages have been noticed in 23 states under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Because of this the per rural household employment declined from 54 days in 2009-10 to 43 days in 2011-12. There was also a substantial decline in the proportion of works abandoned midway or not completed for a significant period were noticed.

“Works of Rs.2,252.43 crore, which were undertaken under the scheme, were not permissible. It was seen that 7, 69,575 works amounting to Rs. 4,070.76 crore were incomplete even after one to five years. It was also noted that expenditure on works amounting to Rs.6, 547.35 crore did not result in creation of durable assets,” The report said that an analysis of releases made to states for the period April 2007 to March 2012 and poverty data showed that three states Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh had 46 percent of the rural poor in India but accounted for only 20 percent of the total funds released under the scheme.” This would indicate that the poorest of poor were not fully able to exercise their rights under MGNREGS,” the report said that correlation between poverty levels and implementation of the scheme was not very high.

An amount of Rs. 4,072.99 crore was released by the ministry during 2008-12 to states for use in the subsequent financial years, in contravention of budgetary provisions. Excess funds of Rs.2,374.86 crore were released by the ministry to six states, either due to wrong calculation or without taking note of the balances available with the states. It said there were significant inefficiencies in the implementation of the annual plans. The CAG said despite MGNREGA being in force for seven years, governments of Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh did not formulate rules for carrying out provisions of the act, as of March 2012

The report noted that job cards were not issued to 12,455 households in six states, photographs were not found pasted on 4.33 lakh job cards in seven states, there were multiple job cards in the name of the same person in 18,325 cases and there were delays in issue of job cards ranging up to 51 months in 12,008 cases. The CAG said unemployment allowance was not paid in 47,687 cases and non-payment of wages was of Rs. 36.97 crore.

The audit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which has an annual budget of 40,000 crore covers the period between 2007 and 2011. The ministry will soon be issuing orders to make it compulsory for all Grampanchayat accounts related to the rural employment guarantee programme to be certified by chartered accountants. To this end, CAG will create a panel of chartered accountants for each district. There will also be a random check of the Grampanchayat accounts by CAG. There have been large number of complaints of misappropriation of funds under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ranging from the embezzlement of funds in seven districts in Uttar Pradesh to the 90-crore scam in Andhra Pradesh, given that funds are used and disbursed at the Gram panchayat.

Table-3: Performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme MGNREGA (National Overview) (Reported till 12/02/2013)

	FY 06-07 200 districts	FY 07-08 330 districts	FY 08-09 619 districts	FY09-10 626 Districts	FY10-11 626 Districts	FY 11-12 632 Districts	FY12-13 636
Total job Card issued	3.78 Cr	6.48 Cr	10.01 Cr	11.25 Cr	11.98 Cr	12.39 Cr	12.59 Cr
Employment Provided to households	2.10 Cr	3.39 Cr	4.51 Cr	5.26 Cr	5.49 Cr	5.04	4.48 Cr
Person Days per HH	43 Days	42 Days	48 Days	54 Days	47 Days	43 Days	36 Days

MGNREGA AND ITS IMPACT ON MIGRATION:

MGNREGA is focusing on reducing the number of migrant labourers in the country as employment is being provided to them in their own villages. MGNREGA is a scheme which confines distress migration, when people have to go to cities to find work because they cannot survive on what they can earn in their own villages.

Generally, for the people those who have no access to positive. Migration opportunities, it may be a good way to curb distress migration, which is creditable previously migration has played a significant role in the urbanization. Still many urban problems like over-burdened infrastructure, urban poverty, decline in social welfare, overcrowding and increased population in urban areas blamed on this ‘ rural spill over’. It is seen that distress migration occurs at the cost of net loss to both rural and urban areas, and a decline in social welfare. Because of inadequate demand for labour in urban areas thus, in this process, rural poverty gets transformed into urban poverty. In villages most people would prefer not to migrate, men and women both. Therefore, if MGNREGA can be used to control rural urban migration then it will be yet another benefit from this act. Which can actually do something concrete in poverty alleviation and rural development in the long run.

The lack of exact official data on Migration is a matter of concern that should be corrected as soon as possible. Rural and Urban migration can become a problem for both the areas. The aspect of MGNREGA where it can be used to curb rural-urban migration is conditional on the MGNREGA being implemented well in that region, otherwise, if work is not supplied, if wages aren’t paid on time, then workers will have no incentive to stop migrating. However, primary aim of the Act is to provide welfare for the population that does not even earn the minimum wage- the fact that it can also curb distress migration which is just a positive secondary impact of the Act.

However, it is doubtful to achieve something in reducing mobility for work in general – Which is not desirable anyway? Question is not about migration itself, but what kinds of opportunities are available for unskilled labour groups of people” not only economically, but also socially. The programme is an attempt to reduce labour mobility by providing unskilled, socially unrewarding work in rural areas. From labour market point of view, MGNREGA is important for creating safety net for poor people without damaging labour market and employment prospects.

CRITICISM:

2011 Wall Street journal report claims that the programme has been a failure. No major roads have been built, no new homes, schools or hospitals or any infrastructure to speak of has resulted from the programme at national level, a key criticism is corruption. Workers hired under the MGNREGA programme say they are frequently not paid in full or forced to pay bribes to get jobs, and aren’t learning any new skills that could improve their long-term prospects and break the cycle of poverty.

Another important criticism is the poor quality of public works schemes completed product. In February 2012 in an interview, Jairam Ramesh, the Ministry of Rural Development for the central government of India, admitted that the roads and irrigation canals built by unskilled labor under this programme were of very poor quality and were washed away with heavy rains.

It also appears as if MGNREGA has something to do with the shift of people fro self-employment to the sarkari social security net. In the five years between 1999-00 and 2004-05, when the economy grew at 6 percent on an average. In the next five years to 2009-10, the economy reved up to 8.6 percent. An analysis by Crisil Research of the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO’s) latest jobs data found that the second half of the decade created all of 2.2millionadditional jobs while the first half created as many as 92.7 million new jobs. The question is , How did slower growth create more jobs? And why did faster growth do the opposite? What’s going wrong? What was so different between the 1999-00 and 2004-05 period and the five years after that? The main divergences were in growth, and it can be no one’s case that growth destroyed self-employment.

The key difference was huge social spends in rural areas, especially MGNREGA which is creating around 25 million jobs in NREGA-based projects annually. In 2010-2011, MGNREGA provided 257 core person-days of employment. This stopped people from being self-employed.

SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER IMPLEMENTATION:

· Ensuring job card verification is done on the spot against an existing data base.

· Reducing the time lag between application and issue of job cards.

· Selection of works by Gramsabha in villages and display after approval of projects.

· To ensure public choice, transparency and accountability, At least half the works should be run by GramPanchayats.

· Maintenance of muster roll by executing agency-to prevent contractorsled works. Regular measurement of work done according to a qachedule of rural rates Supervision of Works by qualified technical personnel on time.

· Payment of wages through banks and post offices.

Paulomee Mistry, General Secretary of MGNREGA said; Civil society organizations (CSOs) can play an important role in monitoring such programmes. Budget monitoring can be a useful tool for helping governments implement such ambitious schemes. Various steps to raise awareness about MGNREGA, including holding public meetings, organizing training sessions for youths, distributing pamphlets, and conducting a house-to-house campaign to explain the people’s rights under MGNREGA. Workers employed under this scheme ought to be taken up. The first step in this direction was the formation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Workers’ Union in Gujarat (NREGWUG), which was followed by other similar efforts in Rajasthan parts of Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.

CONCLUSIONS:

First, the MGNREGA with improved wages and incomes in rural areas, appears to have prompted more people to drop out of self-employment and increased dependency on the Government.

Second, the lack of labour market reforms suggests that the seeds for long-term jobs growth are not being exposed.

Third, a separate study is required to understand the full consequences ofMGNREGA and its economic impact-both god and bad. The next few years may see more jobless growth if existing policies are not assessed correctly.

Finally, it may be concluded that if all the loopholes in distribution of job cards and payment of wages, misuse of funds, measurement of work etc could be brought under strict vigilance, then only MGNREGA would be a weapon against rural poverty. Otherwise it would remain as an adhoc arrangement to provide meal to needy people through creating employment only. People should appreciate that MGNERGA does not stand to create employment only but also provides an opportunity to serve their villages, their state and their country.

REFERENCES:

1. MGNREGA, Report to the people (2^nd February 2012); Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.

2. A Survey of Twenty Districts (2008) Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Delhi.

3. R. Jagannathan (2011) Did MGNREGA kill as many jobs as it created?

4. MGNREGA website.

5. CAG’s report on MGNREGA’S 2012

6. MGNREGA Briefings Book January,2013

Received on 22.11.2013 Modified on 12.02.2014

Int. J. Ad. Social Sciences 2(2): April-June, 2014; Page 77-80