Rural women and infrastructure need a budget boost
The yearly spend on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation MGNREGA, by the central Government has been around Rs 35,000 to Rs 45,000 crores during the past decade. Over 70% of its beneficiaries are women. Among it achievements is the fact that it has provided significant rural employment in certain poor states like Chattisgarh with 60% participation of the rural poor of which three fourth were women. However there is a striking contrast of a dismal 11% of the rural poor participating in MNREGA projects in Bihar . As per the NCAER survey report with University of Maryland based on the 'India Human Development' survey "only 24.4% of rural households participate in MGNREGA nationwide, and nearly 70% of the interested households cannot participate due to lack of work" .
Two questions come to the mind here. Why is there so much disparity in the work given out under MGNREGA in Bihar and in Chattisgarh ? Should there be lack of work in rural India when there is so much to do in rural infrastructure development? A politician of Bihar told me that no one touches it in Bihar as the Government is scared of MNREGA. Bihar is the place where bridges and roads happened on paper during the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, something that the Nitish Government has come to stop with substantial effort. MNREGA permits and factually encourages such projects on paper as the focus is on employment and not on rural assets build for the community. The temporary nature of construction permitted and encouraged in MNREGA could open the floodgates of mega scams and the Nitish Government avoids it to just stay clear of scams
The answers lead us to the vague guidelines of MGNREGA and how it has fared as a rudderless boat instead of a ship earmarked for a destination to improve rural India. There was no measurable metrics that can gauge the performance of work done under MGNREGA. Labour output and valuation got distorted as the UPA deliberately created MGNREGA as a scheme to pay out wages without deriving commensurate output. Here work could be done on paper with no questions asked, as MGNREGA did not permit use of machinery that could be used to make temporary works permanent in nature.
As per MGNREGA website 53% of the work done under its schemes in 2011-12 and 58% of the work done in the year 2012-13 belonged to water conservation projects in 600 poorest districts which is laudable. These projects have not stood the test of time. Rural India needs water harvesting and recharging of aquifers since 29% of the ground water bodies are in critical and semi critical state. However Rs 40,000 crores of money spent by MGNREGA yearly from 2005 onwards by the states has little to show in terms of rural assets build or development work done. It is here that the Government needs to make critical changes in the MGNREGA by tying up employment expenditure outlays to infrastructure spends by the Government.
Rural assets for water conservation are needed urgently. Nearly 16% or a sixth of infrastructure spend goes towards wages. Whereas it is laudable for MGNREGA to operate as a wage payer to alleviate rural poverty the Budget of 2016 should have the provision to be integrated with infrastructure projects to deliver measurable outputs that boost the GDP.
Two questions come to the mind here. Why is there so much disparity in the work given out under MGNREGA in Bihar and in Chattisgarh ? Should there be lack of work in rural India when there is so much to do in rural infrastructure development? A politician of Bihar told me that no one touches it in Bihar as the Government is scared of MNREGA. Bihar is the place where bridges and roads happened on paper during the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, something that the Nitish Government has come to stop with substantial effort. MNREGA permits and factually encourages such projects on paper as the focus is on employment and not on rural assets build for the community. The temporary nature of construction permitted and encouraged in MNREGA could open the floodgates of mega scams and the Nitish Government avoids it to just stay clear of scams
The answers lead us to the vague guidelines of MGNREGA and how it has fared as a rudderless boat instead of a ship earmarked for a destination to improve rural India. There was no measurable metrics that can gauge the performance of work done under MGNREGA. Labour output and valuation got distorted as the UPA deliberately created MGNREGA as a scheme to pay out wages without deriving commensurate output. Here work could be done on paper with no questions asked, as MGNREGA did not permit use of machinery that could be used to make temporary works permanent in nature.
As per MGNREGA website 53% of the work done under its schemes in 2011-12 and 58% of the work done in the year 2012-13 belonged to water conservation projects in 600 poorest districts which is laudable. These projects have not stood the test of time. Rural India needs water harvesting and recharging of aquifers since 29% of the ground water bodies are in critical and semi critical state. However Rs 40,000 crores of money spent by MGNREGA yearly from 2005 onwards by the states has little to show in terms of rural assets build or development work done. It is here that the Government needs to make critical changes in the MGNREGA by tying up employment expenditure outlays to infrastructure spends by the Government.
Rural assets for water conservation are needed urgently. Nearly 16% or a sixth of infrastructure spend goes towards wages. Whereas it is laudable for MGNREGA to operate as a wage payer to alleviate rural poverty the Budget of 2016 should have the provision to be integrated with infrastructure projects to deliver measurable outputs that boost the GDP.
Keywords: MGNREGA, Rural employment, Budget 2016
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