Status of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

for Ministry of Rural Development | Date - 27-11-2007

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005 which aims at providing enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas was notified on 2nd February, 2006 in 200 identified districts in 27 States in its first phase of implementation.  130 additional districts were included in the 2nd phase of NREGA during the current financial year making a total of 330 districts.  The Government has now decided to cover all the remaining rural districts of all State and Union Territories under NREGA with effect from 1.4.2008.   A notification to this effect has already been issued on 28.9.2007.

2.            Financial Progress:

(A)   2006-07

Funds for NREGA are released based on employment demand in a district. Central Government makes a budget provision to meet the initial anticipated demand. A budget provision of Rs.11300 crores for the year 2006-07 was made for NREGA. During the year, an amount of Rs. 12073.56 crores was available with 200 phase I districts for implementing NREGA. This included Central release of Rs. 8263.66 crores, State share of Rs. 802.92 crores and Opening Balance as on 1/4/2006 of Rs. 2052.92 crores. Besides, an amount of Rs. 377.20 crores was released to 113 phase II NREGA districts for preparatory arrangements and initial expenses.  A total central release of Rs. 8640.86 crores was made to the 313 districts during 2006-07 under NREGA.

Against the total available funds of  Rs. 12073.56 crore with the States during 2006-07,  a sum of Rs. 8823.36 crore was utilised under the Programme. The average fund utilisation per district was Rs. 44.12 crore in 2006-07.. 

 (B)    2007-08 (Upto 14th November,2007)

            The Central Government has made a budget provision of Rs 12000 crore for the current financial year for implementation of the Act against which an amount of Rs. 8303.82 crores have been released up to 14th November 2007.  Out of this, Rs. 5365.99 crore have been released to the Phase I districts and Rs. 2937.92 crore have been released to the Phase II districts. In addition, Rs. 159.44 crore have been released to the Phase III districts( except districts of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat) for making preparatory arrangements  like IEC, printing and procurement of statutory documents, training of officials and non-officials and preparation of perspective plans. Funds to Gujarat and HP will be released after the assembly election process in the States is over. Rs. 18.85 crore have also been released to the 130 phase II districts for training of officials and for preparation of perspective plan.

3.            Programme Outcomes:

(A)    2006-07

(i)  As the Programme is demand based, 2.12 crore households had demanded employment, out of which 2.10 crore households were provided employment during 2006-07 and a total of 90.51 crore person days of employment was provided under the Programme. Under NREGA, an average of 45.2 lakh persondays of employment per districts were generated, while under SGRY in 2005-2006, the average persondays generated were 14.02 lakh per district.

(ii) Out of total 90.51 crore persondays, the share of Scheduled Castes was 22.95 crore persondays(25.36%) and Scheduled Tribes was 32.99(36.45%) constituting a total of 55.94 crore persondays for SCs/STs which comes to about 62%.

(iii)  As per NREG Act, the share of women persondays should be 1/3 and the same was 36.79 crore persondays which is about 41% as compared to 24% under SGRY during 2006-07.

(iv)  An amount of Rs. 5842.37 crore was paid as unskilled wages which was 66.21% of total utilization of Rs. 8823.36 crore

(v)  A total of 8.34 lakh works were opened under the Programme, out of which 3.86 lakh works were completed. Category wise breakup is annexed as Annexure-I.

(B)   2007-08 (Upto September, 2007)

(i)  During 2007-08(upto September, 2007), 1.97 crore households have demanded employment and 1.88 crore households have been provided employment. A total of 56.14 crore persondays of employment has been generated under the Programme.

(ii) Out of total 56.14 crore persondays, the share of Scheduled Castes is 14.70 crore persondays(26.18%) and Scheduled Tribes is 18.44 crore          persondays(32.84%) constituting a total of 33.14 crore persondays which comes to about  59.03%.

(iii)  The share of women is 26.61 crore persondays which is 47.40% .

(iv)  A total of 8.92 lakh works have been undertaken under the Programme, out of which 2.15 lakh works have been completed. Category wise breakup is given at Annexure-II.

The Ministry has taken various measures for strengthening of programme implementation processes through following steps.

Strict Vigilance and Monitoring

States have been directed that social audit of each and every work of NREGA should be completed within three months and the Ministry be apprised of the results of the social audit.  Members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council are actively participating in the Social audit. As per reports received from Madhya Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, social audit has so far been done in 25,900 gram Panchayats.

Muster Roll verification has to be done in a campaign mode and consolidated reports sent to the Ministry.  So far information has been received from Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,  Meghalaya, Chattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. A total of 73,04,106 Muster rolls have been verified in these States.

People’s Participation

Village level monitoring committees have been set up and trained.

Applications were invited from NGOs against expression of interest for capacity building under NREGA. About 2560 proposals have been received. These have been sent to CAPART for short listing and training for generating awareness under Gramin Vikas Andolan.

Transparency

A comprehensive Web-based MIS www.nrega.nic.in has been implemented which places all data in public domain. This data pertains to workers’ entitlements like registration. Job cards, muster rolls, employment demanded and provided; work data like sanctioned shelf of works, work estimates, work in progress, measurement; Financial indicators like funds available/spent, amount paid as wages, materials and administrative expenses.  Data software has been engineered for cross verification of records and for report generation.

In order to make the process of payment of wages transparent and to ensure that wages are directly paid to the beneficiaries, States are being encouraged to make payment of wages through banks and post offices.  Some State which have taken initiative in this regard are Andhra Pradesh where in 18 districts payment is being made through post offices, Karnataka where payment is made through the banks in 5 districts and Jharkhand where payment is being made in all the 22 NREGA  districts through banks and post offices.  At the national level the matter is being pursued with the Ministry of Posts in order to facilitate payment of wages through post offices.

Generating Awareness

Various steps have been taken to generate awareness about NREGA. Gram Sabhas and  one day orientation of all Sarpanches at the Block level have been held. Local vernacular newspapers, radio, TV, films and cultural forms are being used for the purpose. Leaflets and brochures in local language are being provided. Village camps have been organized by the District teams and NGOs and Self help Groups are being associated in the awareness generation.

Training

So far 200000 PRIs, 58016 Administrative and technical officials and 28071 Members of Vigilance and Monitoring Committees(VMC) have been trained.

This information was given by the Union Rural Development Minister, Dr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh in a statement in Lok Sabha  today.

Annexure-I

Annexure-II

SMK/ST/JA