10 Years of MGNREGA: Evaluation

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has completed a decade of its existence. The scheme was started on 2 February 2006 with an initial coverage of 200 poorest districts in the country. By April 2008, the scheme was extended to cover all rural areas of the country. The programme is the largest of its kind for providing employment in rural areas anywhere in the world.

Under the scheme, 100 days of work is given to job-card holders. The programme is designed as a safety net to reduce migration of rural poor by providing them with work and wages. The scheme is demand-based programme with an open-ended budget for implementation, unlike the other social sector schemes with fixed budget allocation. As the programme completed ten years, it is important to evaluate its performance and make necessary changes to it.

Positive outcomes of the scheme

• In a short span of 10 years, the programme has generated more than 1980 crore person-days of employment benefitting 276 million workers.
• Out of all the workers benefited under the scheme, the percentage of Scheduled Caste workers has consistently been about 20% and of Scheduled Tribe workers has been about 17%.
• The number of hours of work put in by women workers has increased steadily, reaching much above the statutory minimum of 33%. Around 57% of all workers are women. This has improved the gender parity.
• Since the start of the scheme, more than three lakh crore rupees have been spent on it, and of this, 71% has been spent on wage payments to workers.
• The programme encouraged management of natural resources through initiatives such as water harvesting and conservation, drought proofing works, land development, and afforestation. Sustainable assets, such as irrigation canals and roads, have been created. Around 50 per cent of MGNREGA works relate to productive rural infrastructure, including toilets, and 23 per cent relate to building assets for marginalised communities. More than 65 per cent of all works undertaken under the programme are linked to agriculture and allied activities.
• A 2015 study showed that the Act hashelped in lowering poverty by almost 32% between 2004 and 2012.
• The programme has become an important instrument for empowering gram panchayats (GPs). It allowed gram sabhas to plan their own works and untied funds to execute these works. No other programme has placed funds at this scale (Rs 15 lakh per year on average) directly with gram panchayats.
• There is an increase and reversal of a six-year-long period of stagnation in rural wages. Data suggest that the legislation has reduced distress migration in traditionally migration-intensive areas.
• The scheme has been effective in fighting corruption through the use of IT and community-based accountability mechanisms like social audits.
• The scheme also encouraged financial inclusion. More than 10 crore no-frills bank and post office accounts were opened in between 2008 and 2014, and 80 per cent of wages were paid through these.

Criticism

• There is a fluctuation in the Central outlay for the scheme, in terms of fund allocation as a percentage of overall budget spending.
• There are complaints on delays in releasing of funds to States for wage payment. This has led to delays in wage payment and decline in the number of people interested in joining the scheme.
• The rate of work completion has also reduced. It has fallen from 88% to 51% in the last three years.
• On an average, each NREGA household received only 45 days of work which is less than half the guarantee.
• There are issues corruption and fabrication of job cards.
• There is also criticism by some economists that the rise in rural wages under MGNREGA has contributed to rise in food inflation.

What can be done?

The evaluation of the scheme suggests that there are issues impeding the successful implementation of it. The scheme needs constant review and evaluation. The scheme should be linked with the Socio-Economic Caste Census for better targeting. Consistency in political support, sufficient fund allocation, regular wage revisions, building grievance redressal systems, and use of technology to reduce leakages are necessary for successful implementation of the scheme.