“Impact Assessment of MGNREGA Scheme in

Gandhinagar District, Gujarat”

6th April 2016

Prepared by: Akshat Kumar

Neep Saikia
Shivani Bhardwaj

Submitted to-

Dr A.N Rao

Gujarat National Law University

 DECLARATION

We, Akshat Kumar, Neep Saikia and Shivani Bhardwaj, hereby declare that this research
report entitled MNREGA: RESEARCH on REALITY is the outcome of our own study
undertaken under the guidance of Prof. A.N. Rao, Gujarat National Law University. We have
duly acknowledged all the sources used by us in the preparation of this dissertation.

6th April 2016 Akshat Kumar

(15A015)
Shivani Bhardwaj
(15B132)

Neep Saikia
(15B091)
 INTRODUCTION

Post-Independence (1947) , the basic agenda of the Government of India was to uplift the socio-
economic condition of the people and eradicate poverty from rural India. The government through
its Five Year Programme and a number of other policies stressed on the development of the
agragarian sector of the nation. The government through the years introduced a number of
programmes like the National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) 1980-89; Rural Landless
Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP) 1983-89; Jawahar Rojgar Yojana (JRY) 1989-
1990; Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) 1993- 99, Sampoorna Grameen Rojgar Yojana
(SGRY) 2001; National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP) 2004 etc. The Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 was a landmark programme after 6 decades of
independence which guarantees 100 days of employment in a financial year to any rural household
whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work. The Act has come into force with
effect from February, 2006 in 200 districts initially and later on, it was extended to all the rural
districts of India from the financial year 2008-09. The Act was implemented in phased manner –
130 districts were added in 2007–08. With its spread over 625 districts across the country, the
flagship program of the UPA Government has the potential to increase the purchasing power of
the rural poor, reduce distress migration and to create useful assets in rural India. Also, it can
foster social and gender equality as 23 per cent workers under the scheme are Scheduled Castes,
17 per cent Scheduled Tribes and 50 per cent women. According to reports in 2010–11, 41
million households were employed on MGNREGA worksites. This Act was introduced with an
aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or unskilled work to
people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line.

Objectives of MGNREGA:
1. Expanding earning sources for the rural population
2 Strengthening pure natural resources under control via works that deal with causes of
serious hardship like famine, deforestation and ground break down and so motivate
maintainable growth.
3. Strengthening grassroots procedures of democracy through encouraging community
feeling.
4. Infusing visibility and responsibility in government and its policies.
5. Strengthening high decentralization as well as deepening procedures of democracy by
providing a critical part to the local Panchayati Raj, Organizations in planning, tracking and
execution.

Implementation of the programme :

 Cost sharing for MGNREGA BY RESPECTIVE GOVERNMENTS :-

1.  Central Government: 3/4th . 2. State Government: 1/4th
 In the next process adult associates of non-urban houses publish their name, age and
deal with picture to the Gram Panchayat.
 The Gram panchayat signs up houses after making employment-need enquiries and
provides job cards. The job cards contain the facts of authorized participants with his /her
picture.
 Registered person can sign up at the Panchayat office or Program Official to perform
for at least a couple of weeks on the ongoing work.
 The Panchayat/ Programmed officer will agree to the legitimate program and
distribute work. A page offering performance of the beneficiaries form be sent to the
candidate and shown at panchayat office.
 The respective work will be offered within a distance of 5 km. If it is above 5 km,
transport reimbursement in the form of additional salary will be compensated.
 If work under the program is not offered within 15 times of invoice of the program
then daily unemployment allocation will be compensated to the candidate.

Verification
FIG. 1
“THE MGNREGA WORK AND PROCEDURE TABLE”

Aim of Research trip :

On 14 March 2016, students of BSW LLB, GNLU conducted a field trip in two villages of
Dehgam taluka of Gandhinagar district to assess the impact as well of ground realities of
MGNREGA and its activities. The villages covered were Kadjodra and Antoli and we scrutinized
the amount of work done in these villages under MGNREGA.

“entrance of Kadjodra village”

VILLAGES AND MGNREGA :

1. KADJODRA
The village of Kadjodra is situated at a distance of approximately 15 kilometres from the
capital city of Gandhinagar. The village comes under Kadjodra panchayat and Dehgam taluka.
It consists of a population of 12,000(app.) with around 4000 households. Gujarati was the
primary language of the village with a few residents having the knowledge of Hindi.
 Details of MGNREGA in Kadjodra:
The works under MGNREGA is allotted by the Panchayat during the Gram Sabha of the
village which takes place four times a year. The issue of demand for work is raised during
the Gram Sabha. Gram sabha allots the work to the individuals after scrutinizing the
applicable government policies and availability of work in them.
According to the MGNREGA Coordinator of Kadjodra, “the panchayat undertakes one
project at a time”. The work done under MGNREGA in the villages are usually supervised
by the sarpanch and the Village Monitoring Committee (VMC). On each project a
minimum of 14 workers are employed wheres the number of workers on a project do not
exceed 30.
According to the sarpanch, workers at the construction sites are provided with water,
shade, shelter and first aid as per the directives of MGNREGA programme.
As per the data provided by the government and the group realities scrutinized by us
varied vastly. As per government data, the total number of recipients of job cards under
MGNREGA are 352 under which a total of 535 are employed. Out of these 352 only 148
job cards were active fetching 153 active workers. In the Financial year of 2015-16 a total
of nine projects were taken up with an allotted sum of Rs. 4.65 crore rupees employing 50
individuals and generating 2975 days of employment.
 “the kuchcha road made under the MGNREGA programme”

 Personal Observation and opinions:

For our field visit, we were assisted by a government official who was responsible for the
MGNREGA activities in the village. He introduced us with the various schemes and
functionalities of the Project. We were introduced with the various projects undertaken
under the MGNREGA in the village. The Village Sarpanch showed us a 500m long road,
which was a mud pathway, built on a deep stretch and the result of manual unskilled
labour. The work force employed for the construction of this kuchcha road was around 22-
25 people. The estimated cost of the project as depicted by the officials was around 4,
54,000. And wages payable were upto a maximum level of Rs. 178 per day, working days
being from Monday to Saturday. The Payment was made according to the muster role on
an online basis. The muster roll contained details of the beneficiaries such as work done
and their bank accounts etc.
According to our own observations, “the road construction was rather unsatisfactory as
the road was majorly a mud pathway and was also prone to erosion during the rainy
season. It seemed it would have been an utter impossible task to commute on the road
during rains as it would have only been a puddle of semi liquid muddy water. Looking at
the nature of work done, it seemed that the work could have been done without the
employment of 22-25 people in the duration that it was completed, which could hint us
towards the situation of disguised unemployment”

Our next visit was to a school play ground, another project under MGNREGA. The school
play ground extended over 4 Bighas of land. The project was initiated in mid 2015. The
 main object of the project was to fill a trench which was around 6 feet deep. The cost of
project as notified by the officials there was Rs. 1.25 lakh. Employing around 13-15
workers on a daily basis for which the payment was also made on a daily basis. The work
included digging the land and then filling it with mud carried from outside the village, and
levelling the land.
One of our researchers Akshat went into the hamlet of the village to survey some of
villagers randomly. There we got to know a unique yet dis-contentful information about
the programme in the village. According to a few villagers, those who did not have job
cards also went to perform MGNREGA with the cards of other job card holders work
under the instruction of any local coordinator who collected the money from Gram-sabha
for their work and distributed to them on his own will.”
“Another interesting and concerning thing which we noticed was that the job cards of
people looked doctored as it appeared that the whole card was just prepared and all the
information was filled at once rather than periodically as it should happen. Thus, we can
conclude that even though some work has been done under the MGNREGA project in this
village but there are a number of discrepancies which need to be rectified”, commented
Neep and Akshat after verifying the job card of the holders.

“ school in the village Kadjodra”

 Problems faced in functioning by the government:

The govt. Official also discussed with us the various problems that were faced by them
while undertaking their respective functions.
 (a) The foremost problem they revealed was the in the implementation of the fund in the
80:20 ratio, that is for each project, 80% funds were reserved for the material and 20%
for the labour costs. Due to this compliance of ratios they often face serios hardships in
making payment to the workers which often gets delayed upto 1-2 months. Also, the
proportions for maintaining this ratio are not flexible.
(b) Irregular distribution of wages: one of the villagers had disclosed that they hadn’t
received any payments for almost upto 1 and a half months which would sometimes
also get extended.
(c) Another problem that they revealed was the forcible pressure on them for allocation of
work to workers of skilled labour, which as per the provisions of MGNREGA was not
valid.
(d) We also observed, that although the job cards allowed women to work, but due to
traditions and social obligations they more often than not chose to stay at home rather
than joining the work distributed under the project. Also the village mostly consisted of
people from upper castes which even dominated the work allocation. Hence, the 33%
reservation of work for backward classes didn’t seem to be materialising.

2. Antoli
 Geographical details: The village is around 10.5 km away from Gandhinagar
district and comes under the Dahegam Taluka, the village panchyat being under Antoli.
The population is around 1500 and consists of 300 households.
 Details of MGNREGA in Antoli: We observed two projects undertaken in the
Antoli village under MGNREGA, one was a School playground. Where the main work
was land filling upto two and a half feet. The project was undertaken under the first half
of 2015 and was completed by the end of 2015. The estimated cost of the project was Rs.
1,05,000/-.
The second project observed by us was the construction of 700m. Kuchha road, located
opposite the school. The project had been undertaken in 2014 and was completed by the
end of 2015. The estimated cost of the project was Rs. 4,05,000.
 “ the school and its playground constructed under the MGNREGA project”

 Personal observations and opinions: In the village Antoli we got the opportunity to talk
to 5-6 beneficiaries. Most of them seemed to be around 60 years of age. Although, Under
the MGNREGA guidelines, the employment of the people beyond the age of 60 is not
allowed and the people around 55-60 years of age are only employed for work which
would not include hard unskilled labour, for example, serving water to other workers.
However, it was observed by our team that a lot of men, who were beyond the age of 60
were employed for the unskilled manual labour, this could be indicative of poor
economic conditions at homes. We also observed that they had a large family to support
with mainly 4-5 children, under the age of 18 years and so they were probably forced into
the work due to hardships.
Another observation made by us was the fact that there were no major changes in the
economic backgrounds of people. The wages of Rs. 178 per day wasn’t enough hence
most of them had alternative sources of livelihoods to depend upon. One or two
beneficiaries also talked about how dire conditions they were living in and hence hadn’t
been provided the BPL card. Another problem noted was that the standards specified by
the govt. To fall under the category of BPL were too menial, and the survival without
these was basically impossible due to the climatic conditions and changing times. Hence
the standards should be taken into revision as the old ones were obsolete.
 We also saw some instances of deliberately altering the facts spoken by one of the
beneficiaries. While one of the beneficiaries was talking to us, owing to semantic
barriers, the surveyors being students, who didn’t understand Gujarati, one of the officials
wrongfully translated what the beneficiary said. About his medical expenses being
irrationally high at times and irregular, whereas the translator reportedly said otherwise,
that no major medical expenses were incurred. There was a lack of sanitation facilities in
the village, not all households had toilets, and there was also an evident lack of
cleanliness, but as per the officials, owing to lack of demand of work and funds, they
only undertook land development and not sanitation and infrastructure development.
Finally, we observed lack of awareness and understanding b/w villagers and officials,
whereas the beneficiary believed that they would be notified when work was available,
the officials actually relied on workers to demand for work.

Conclusion

This field visit was in a lot of ways informative and descriptive of the functioning of the
MGNREGA policy of the government. Not only this, but it also unveiled a lot of discrepancies
and ground realities in the implementation of the scheme in the two villages in Dahegam Taluka
of Gandhinagar district. In spite of it being a great initiative it fails to achieve some very
important objectives that the scheme mainly aspires to fulfil. The main objective of providing
100 days of guaranteed employment to everyone is what the scheme has its main target,
however, the working of the scheme is such that it leaves loop-holes in the achieving the same.
As we saw that the work is allotted on the basis of demand for employment generated within the
villages, the unawareness of beneficiaries in the village regarding their right to demand for work
doesn’t let them avail the benefits provided under the act. There were notable instances in which
there was fabricating of facts and figures by the one of the officials. Hence, we saw only two
recent projects each in both villages which employed about 15-20 people on an average. It
should not be ignored that the officials also found it difficult to properly make payments of
wages for the want of maintaining certain ratios as has been prescribed in the Act. Though the
govt. tries its best to provide the much needed help in employment, due to unawareness of
general public and rigidity of rules they are not benefitting from the same. We also noticed that
only land development activities took place in the two villages, whereas there could be more
projects under either hygiene & sanitation or water resources development. That aside, the
payment made are below Rs.178 per person per day according to the work the respective
workers do, which may not be a very significant amount in making a huge difference in the lives
of beneficiaries with respect to their life styles; but does contribute in a way to at least ensure
availability of food. Hence, we would suggest that some changes in the basic implementation
ways, and ensuring the that the carelessness and corrupt practices be kept in check, the scheme
could greatly and effectively contribute to making significant changes in the society and the lives
of these people.