March 31, 2008
 
  Press Release
 
  NREGA not just about drought relief, but relief against drought: says CSE
 
  • On the eve of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) becoming a pan-Indian programme from April 1, 2008, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) releases its assessment of two years of the Act
  • Study looks at the Act’s implementation across 9 states and 12 districts
  • CSE wants the programme strengthened but revamped, so that it provides not just wages for work done but ‘work’ that will make ecological regeneration possible
 
 

New Delhi, March 31, 2008: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has huge potential for regenerating village economy in India, but only if its focus remains on the creation of productive assets: says a CSE study released online today. The study comes on the eve of the Act’s extension to the entire country on April 1, 2008.

The study is a close assessment of the Act in its two years of existence; the researchers behind the study have looked at NREGA’s implementation across 12 districts in nine states of the country. Based on the assessment, the study puts forth a set of detailed recommendations to ensure the Act fulfils the expectations it has raised.

Says Sunita Narain, director, CSE: “The Act brings with it huge possibilities of making a difference to the lives of 45 million rural households of our country. Over the two years that it has been in existence, NREGA has already created half-a-million assets and provided jobs to around three per cent of India’s population. Our study shows that people essentially want two things – productive assets and regular wages. Wherever the Act has failed to meet these needs, its implementation has collapsed.”

She adds: “This is the world’s largest ecological regeneration programme for building assets – water conservation structures and afforestation – for economic change and we have to realise its potential and make it work.” 

Creating productive assets: ecological regeneration for economic change
The CSE study finds that despite NREGA’s official focus on jobs, the programme is witnessing a dipping demand for employment under it. This is not because rural India does not need jobs any more, but because of the Act’s lopsided focus and its imperfect wage-for-jobs scheme.

To begin with, governments have failed to articulate the Act’s development potential. Instead of implementing and evaluating the Act purely in terms of employment creation, the focus should have been on the real impacts on local development through productive assets creation.

In terms of assets creation, finds the study, most of the NREGA money has gone to road construction projects, instead of works related to water conservation and harvesting. Of the 27 states where the NREGA was implemented, only five have made substantial allocation to water conservation. During 2006-07, Andhra Pradesh alone accounted for about 67 per cent of the total water conservation works under NREGA in the country.

This has happened because “irrational wage calculations have made projects like water conservation less lucrative,” says Richard Mahapatra, lead researcher of the CSE study and coordinator of CSE’s Natural Resource Management and Livelihoods programme. He points out that panchayats are increasingly demanding more roads and other construction works because road construction gets them the minimum wage and sometimes even more than that. “The nexus of local government officials and contractors is also a reason behind building works getting priority,” Mahapatra adds.

Bad planning, no maintenance
The programme is also plagued by another set of problems, finds the CSE analysis – that of incomplete and abandoned works, and lack of maintenance of completed works.

Out of a total of 769,582 works under progress, only 158,277 (20.56 per cent) have been completed. Till August 2007, only about 14 per cent of water conservation works under NREGA had been completed. In fact, road construction projects were getting done at a faster rate.

The study has found that bad planning for water conservation structures is putting a large number of the assets created into disuse. For instance, water harvesting structures have been created without any provision for catchment protection. On top of this, ‘maintenance work’ does not come under the ambit of NREGA as a permissible activity. As a result, districts, which already have large numbers of water harvesting structures and want to use NREGA money for their maintenance, can’t do so.

The way ahead
“People will participate in NREGA only if the programme succeeds in making an impact on their lives,” points out Mahapatra. The CSE study lists a set of steps that will ensure that impact. These include:

  1. Measure not just the wage provided but also the asset created and its effectiveness. This will make village development, through productive assets creation, the primary objective.
  2. Make wage payment people and development friendly, Provide a premium wage for development programmes, which will ensure that work done is completed and is useful.
  3. Continue to emphasise water conservation works under NREGA by providing additional incentives
  4. Make the completion and maintenance of works under NREGA mandatory.
  5. Give importance to afforestation under NREGA by linking it to other forestry programmes – Joint Forest Management or watersheds.
  6. Do more to strengthen village-level planning and decision making by revamping the current operational structures.
  7. Equip panchayats with the necessary personnel and funds for effective implementation of the programme.

“This is a programme not just for short-term relief during drought or distress. It is a programme for long-term relief against drought. It can use the labour of people to build ecological assets – rebuild and regenerate the environment – which will provide people the wherewithal to cope and even overcome the next drought and scarcity. It is the world’s largest ecological regeneration programme. It needs to be understood and ‘worked’ with this in mind,” says Narain. 

The following material is available for download at www.cseindia.org


 

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