MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (DR. C.P. JOSHI)
(a)to (f): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
Statement as referred to in reply to parts (a) to (f) of Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 12 for answer on
26.7.2010
(a)&(b): Yes, Sir. With a view to resolve the issue of shortage of technical personnel in the Blocks and
Gram Panchayats for effective implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, Government has approved deployment
of two engineers per 6000 population of rural households. In North-eastern States and Hill States, two
engineers may be deployed per 3000 population of rural households.
(c)&(d): No, Sir. The expenditure on account of deployment of such engineers is to be met out of the
component of administrative expenditure of 6% of the total expenditure under the Act which is paid
by the Central Government.
(e)&(f): Mahatma Gandhi NREGA is demand based. A job seeker having a valid job card has to apply for
getting employment under the Act. In the four years of its implementation, 2.10 crore households were
provided employment in 2006-07; 3.39 crore in 2007-08; 4.51 crore in 2008-09 and 5.25 crore in 2009-10.
8.35 lakh works were taken up in 2006-07; 17.88 lakh in 2007-08; 27.75 lakh in 2008-09 and 46.01 lakh
in 2009-10.
To improve and strengthen the implementation of the programme, the Government has taken the following steps:
(i) Permissible administrative expenditure limit has been enhanced from 4% to 6% for deployment of dedicated
staff for NREGA, strengthening of management and administrative support structures for social audit, grievance
redressal and ICT infrastructure
(ii) Payment through accounts of NREGA workers to infuse transparency in wage disbursement. To cover gaps
in financial services and outreach and also to ensure greater transparency in wage disbursement, Rural
ATM, hand held devices, smart cards, biometrics have been initiated.
(iii) Instructions have been issued on 7.9.09 directing all States to appoint ombudsman at district level
for grievance redressal.
(iv) Independent appraisal by professional institutions including IITs and IIMs and Agricultural Universities
(v) Independent Monitoring by NLM and Eminent Citizens.
(vi) Visit by Central Council members
(vii) ICT based MIS to make data available to public scrutiny, inclusive of Job cards, Employment
demanded and allocated, Days worked, Muster rolls, shelf of works, Funds available/spent and fund
to various implementing agencies, Social Audit findings, registering grievances and generating
alerts for corrective action.
(viii) Periodic reviews with State Governments
(ix) The Ministry has set up six Working Groups on different aspects impacting the implementation
of the Act. These Working Groups cover (a) Planning and Execution, (b)Wages, (c)Transparency and
Accountability, (d) Capacity Building, (e) Specific needs of specific category of workers and (f)
Works to be taken up on individual land. All the Working Groups have submitted their draft reports.
