The NREGA scheme, farm pond work-Chittor	Working under NREGA

Lack of community awareness/participation seems to be the prime reason for below-par implementation standard of NREGA. Asha is working to change this; the Andhra Pradesh chapter for instance, aims to address the problem through close monitoring, propaganda through pamphlets, cultural shows and various other awareness programs (http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=816). So let us find out more about NREGA.

What is NREGA? (Source: wikipedia.org)

India's United Progressive Alliance Government enacted NREGA on August 25, 2005. The NREGA provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage. NREGA stipulates that the Central Government shall meet the cost towards the payment of wage, 3/4 of material cost and certain percentage of administrative cost. The State Government shall meet the cost towards unemployed allowance, 1/4 of material cost and administrative cost of State Council.

Here’s how it works. Adult members of rural households submit their name, age and address with photo to the Gram Panchayat. The Gram Panchayat registers households after making enquiry and issues a job card. The job card contains the details of adult member enrolled and his /her photo. Registered person can submit an application for work in writing (for at least fourteen days of continuous work) either to Panchayat or to Program Officer. The Panchayat/ Program Officer accepts the valid application and issues a dated receipt of application. A letter providing work will be sent to the applicant and also displayed at Panchayat office. Employment will be provided within a radius of 5 km: if it is above 5 km an extra wage will be paid. If employment under the scheme is not provided within fifteen days of receipt of the application daily unemployment allowance will be paid to the applicant.

The scheme, starting from February 2, 2006 in 200 districts (out of a total of 593 in the country) will cover all districts in five years. The government announced the addition of another 130 districts in the financial year 2007-2008

Working under NREGA	Rural adults can register with Gram Panchayat or Program Officer to obtain a job card under NREGA

NREGA and the Right to Information Act (RTI) (Source: India Together)

In Orissa, by pressing for information on NREGA benefits, citizens are able to hold officials accountable and are able to remedy the situation by themselves in some cases. Here’s an example.

During September and October 2006, Laxmidhar Panigrahi, a social activist, conducted a survey in Bamunigaon and Tumudibandh blocks of Kandhamal district and Semiliguda and Dasamantpur blocks of Koraput district, on behalf of four Orissa NGOs. The survey revealed gross wrongdoings with respect to state's implementation of employment guarantees. Some of them are:
1. All families had not been registered
2. Many had not received job cards
3. In some instances, work days were already entered in the cards at the time of their issuance
4. Sometimes, number of work days mentioned was more than what people had put in
5. Names had been entered wrongly in some cases; in others dead people's names were included
6. NREGA work had not yet begun in some areas and where work had started minimum wages were not being paid or then wages were not being paid on weekly basis
7. Application forms to get job cards were not available in some Gram Panchayats
8. Contractors were doing the work in most cases
9. Village level leaders or 'Gram Sevaks' themselves sold work illegally to the traditional contractor (one such case from Mayurbhanj district is in court of the state government) 10. No village level vigilance and monitoring committees in some places
11. Data was not available in some GPs and blocks and where it was available, it was not correct when crosschecked with people and official website on NREGA.

The villagers of Elengabalsa village of Bandhugaon Gram Panchayat of Koraput district filed an RTI application to know the number of job cards issued in the village; why all the households, who by this time should have got the cards, had not received them? Who were the officers guilty of violating the provisions of the Act, etc? The RTI Act worked as a miracle. The Panchayat authorities issued 40 job cards within seven days of the RTI application; promised to deliver the rest within some days and requested the applicant to withdraw the RTI application. In a similar case in the Tumudibandh block of Kandhamal district, the Block Development Officer, responding to an RTI appeal, immediately released 500 job cards promising to give the rest eventually.

NREGA schemes-farm pond, Chittor

Clearly the extent of a charity like ours that cares about educating the underprivileged goes beyond the direct financial support of literacy drives and initiatives. As is clear from our discussion here, the decisions made and measures adopted by individuals and families are often intricately woven with quality of life, availability of choices and resources, which in turn are directly affected by government schemes, policies and acts. Both NREGA and RTI (reviewed in our previous issue by Raakhi Agrawal) are talking points for people within our team, and for supporters of our cause, as both have the ability to positively influence the decision to bring education and literacy into the daily lives and homes of our underprivileged. For more information on NREGA please visit the official NREGA website maintained by the ministry of Rural Development: http://nrega.nic.in/

Note: All photos downloaded from the official website of the NREGA scheme - Andhra Pradesh
http://nrega.ap.gov.in/Nregs/Home_eng.jsp