Decline began in late UPA rule

Mehboob Jeelani

In February, Ram Aathray, a 37-year-old farmer from Mahoba, lost most of his crop to a hailstorm.
His four acres of land produced a mere two quintals of wheat. Itll only last for four months, he
fears. He could take a mortgage loan but hes saving that for his daughters wedding. The only
option would be to migrate to Delhi and work on a construction site. But theres one thing that holds
him back MGNREGA which, he said, has helped him during hard times. I never left my
village, Mr. Aathray said, because I could get MNREGA work.
But that option is disappearing quickly. Delay in wage payments and budget sequestration by the
central government has discouraged the villagers from being employed under the scheme. The last
time Mr. Aathray was paid was in October 2014. Since then he has put in 70 days of work that
merits a total of Rs.11, 000, but he hasnt received this amount.
There is growing pessimism towards MNREGA in this district. The government just doesnt want
people to work under MNREGA, said Abhishek Mishra, who runs a non-profit, Arunday Sewa
Sansthan. There is work but there is no money, and when there is no money people wont come to
work. This way the government can say, look no one is willing to work under MNREGA, so lets
just scrap this scheme. Local officials come to job sites 15-20 days late to measure work, he
added, and a slow bureaucratic set up ensures that money reaches the workers late.
But the scheme has been successful so far, said Pushpendra Bahi, a local activist. It has given work
to distressed farmers and built a network of wells that have come in handy in dry seasons, he said.
The good times of the scheme were between 2010-2011 when the UPA government was gracious
with its budgets and cautious enough to put in checks and balances to secure the policy for future,
he added. The scheme went through budget cuts after that. With this government cutting funds
further, Mr. Bahi has lost hope. In 2010-2011 Mahobas MNREGA budget was Rs.76 crore; in
2011-2012 it was Rs.42 crore; in 2013-2014 it was down to Rs.28 crore; and in 2014-2015 it shrunk
to Rs. 22 crore.
Prem Chandra Patel, Deputy Commissioner of Labour and Employment who supervises MNREGA
in Mahoba, blamed the Congress-led government for damaging the scheme.
The Centre should eliminate banks and computers from the policy, he said. They should give us
the money and allow us to pass it on to labourers. But to activists like Mr. Bahi, thats where
corruption begins. With low wages and delayed payments, we are back to where we started, he
said.

The Hindu
Opinion Sunday Anchor
Adilabad, May 31, 2015

Fall in allocations...

S. Harpal Singh
Only about 3.91 lakh labourers have reported for work so far this year against last years 5.12 lakh.
Despite a drought in scorching Adilabad, the number of labourers seeking work under MGNREGA
has plummeted. Only about 3.91 lakh labourers have reported for work so far this year against last
years 5.12 lakh. Delay in payments is perhaps the major reason for wage seekers to stay away
from work, said Durgam Praveen, supervising a group of workers in Inkarguda village. Durgam
Balaraju agreed with him. It is five weeks since I have received any payment for my work, he
said. The payment was regular until March 2014.
Sarodi Vijay and his wife Renuka, first-time wage seekers from Nirala village, complained of not
receiving any wages for the 11 weeks of work they have put in so far. We did not go for agriculture
work thinking the government would pay us promptly, Renuka said. They now regret their
decision.
Yes, there is a delay in release of payments this year due to procedural delay, conceded K.
Srinivas, project director of the District Water Management Agency which looks afterMGNREGA
works. Of the 52 revenue mandals in this district, there are 18 in which no payment has been made
to workers since April 1. In others, the workers have received at least 80 per cent of their wages, he
said. He added that all the payments would be released by June 1.
There is also disparity in the amount allocated by the two governments. The amount spent on wages
in this district has slipped from Rs. 200 crore under the UPA-II in 2013-14 to Rs. 173 crore during
the first year of NDA in 2014-15.
Gedam Maya, an Adivasi wage seeker in Kobbaiguda village in Indervelli mandal, said that
conditions were far better about two years back. Now, I am forced to borrow money because of
lack of payment for my work over the last seven weeks, she said.

The Hindu- Opinion- Lead

November 8, 2014

Re-framing the MGNREGA debate

Yamini Aiyar

Reports that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government intends to radically restructure
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have re-ignited
public discussion on the scheme. Since its launch, debate on MGNREGA has been synonymous
with ideological contestations on the role of the state and its welfare functions. Inevitably, the
contours of the debate have been shrill, leaving little space for an evidence-based discussion on the
shape that a re-designed MGNREGA should take.

The first and the most important question that ought to be considered is: has the scheme met its
primary objective of guaranteeing employment to Indias poorest? The most intuitive way of
answering this is by comparing employment levels with poverty rates across States.
If the scheme was well-targeted, households in poorer States would presumably demand more work
and these States would provide the largest share of employment. However, on this metric, the data
presents a damning story. Accountability Initiatives analysis found that in 2010-11, poorer States
such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, which together account for 59 per
cent of the countrys rural BPL population, generated only 34 per cent of employment through
MGNREGA. On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which house eight per cent of the
BPL population, accounted for 23 per cent of the total employment generated that year.
On participation
Other research studies also confirm that poorer States are unable to provide employment.
MGNREGA is designed as a self-targeting programme where participation is a function of
demand for work and the extent to which this demand is actually met. Using National Sample
Survey (NSS) data from 2009-10, economist Martin Ravallion and his colleagues examined
participation through precisely this lens.
Across India, 45 per cent of rural households wanted to work on the MGNREGA. Of these 56 per
cent received work. Put differently, 44 per cent of those who wanted work were not given
employment or, to use the authors definition, were rationed out of the scheme. Importantly,
demand for work was strongly correlated with poverty rates, but actual employment was not. While
demand for work in poorer States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh was high, richer States like Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were able to provide more employment.
While low participation in poorer States is cause for serious concern, the analytical consequences
for the design of MGNREGA and its ability to reach the poorest can be completely understood only
by looking at who actually receives work under the programme. In other words, where employment
is being provided, do the benefits of MGNREGA accrue to those who need it? In its study,
Accountability Initiative drew on the work of Rahul Pathak, a researcher, to answer this question.
Using monthly per-capita household expenditure (MPCE) from the 2009-10 NSS, Mr. Pathak
examined participation across consumption deciles and compared participation of the lowest 30 per
cent (per-capita expenditure of up to Rs.657) with the middle 40 per cent (per capita expenditure
between Rs.657 and Rs.1058) and the top 30 per cent. He found that the bulk of participant
households were nearly equally divided between the lowest 30 per cent (which accounted for 40 per
cent participants) and the middle 40 per cent (accounting for another 42 per cent). Of course, there
are inter-State variations. The quantum of participants from the lowest 30 per cent is highest in
Maharashtra (63 per cent) and Orissa (51 per cent) and far lower in Rajasthan (36 per cent), and
Bihar (37 per cent). High participation of middle 40 per cent households could be argued to indicate
poor targeting. However, the difference in consumption patterns of households in the lowest and
middle deciles, particularly in poorer States is as little as Rs.250-Rs.400 per month or Rs.8-13 per
day. Thus, many middle households are not that much better off and are as vulnerable to shocks as
the poorest. Moreover, given the high participation of women (48 per cent in 2009-10), it is likely
that a significant number of participants from the middle 40 per cent are women, who need extra
income. Thus employment under MGNREGA is largely received by those who need it the most.
The work of Mr. Ravallion and his colleagues reinforce this fact. They find that rationing in the
scheme does not discriminate against the poor. Demand for work is higher among the poor than

among the non-poor. And amongst those who demand work, the poor are more likely to receive it
than the non-poor. So the self-targeting mechanism works.
Two important conclusions emerge from this discussion. First, the real implementation failure in
MGNREGA is that demand for work does not translate in to actual employment in Indias poorer
States. But this is less a function of flawed targeting design than of weak governance. Poorer States
spend lower per-capita on MGNREGA, have higher vacancies, lower staff motivation with limited
technical capacities and are therefore unable to meet the demands of the programme. This will only
be resolved by building the institutional capabilities of frontline administration and local
governments to deliver the scheme.
Of course there are serious problems of corruption and weak implementation both in poor and nonpoor States. There is ample evidence that the poor often receive less than their share of wages, that
payment is delayed and that corruption in the use of materials in MGRNEGA work sites is on the
increase. But the reform challenge this poses is one of governance and this ought to be the focus of
the debate on re-structuring MGNREGA.
Delayed payments, corruption
Second, that self-targeting works suggests that in a country where the debate on identifying the poor
is riddled with controversy, MGNREGAs self-targeting design may well be the most effective
way of ensuring that income support programmes reach those who need it. Any restructuring ought
to strengthen rather than weaken this self-targeting design. This is why the debate on MGNREGA
versus cash transfers, as it is currently framed, simply misses the point. Whatever the arguments for
and against cash transfers, if cash transfers are to work, we first need to know who Indias poor are