With its flagship scheme, MGNREGA, failing on all fronts since its inception in 2006, a wary UPA Government has decided to conduct a nationwide study to evaluate its performance, a move that has come just a few months ahead of the lok Sabha polls.
This is for the first time that the Union Rural Development Ministry has contemplated of conducting such a nationwide concurrent evaluation study of the rural job scheme which has been mired with the corruption and irregularities over the years. Though the Centre has been spending heavily on the scheme, the results have been dismal. Data shows that not only household job generation but even the participation percentage of women and Schedule Caste and Tribes has declined in all these years.
Moreover, the CAG in its recent audit report has also pulled up the RD Ministry and States for failing to plug gaps that has resulted in embezzlement of funds while there have been shortcomings galore such as fake job cards, leaving the Government a worried lot in the poll time. The reference period for the study would be 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 covering 101 sample districts in 28 major States across the country.
“Overall, 40,905 households will be covered under the study that aims to gauge the perception of the people about the scheme in relation to the availability of employment during lean season, wage rates and disbursement of wages, migration of people from village and worksite facilities,” said the official.
He was of the view that despite huge expenditure and far reaching consequences of such an intervention in rural sector and a number of impact research studies to justify the existence of such an important programme, there is complete absence of evaluation study that covers comprehensively the important aspects of the Act and its implementation.
Various types of assets created under MGNREGA and people’s perception about their usefulness and quality, knowing the change in agricultural productivity due to creation of water conservation, water harvesting, irrigation related assets in rural area will also be studied. The study proposed to be completed within next four months once the agency is identified will also study the individual beneficiary scheme, socio-economic impact on the beneficiary household and assess its employment potential.
As per the Government reports, average person days per household in the current financial year (till September 9, 2013) was lower than the national average (28) in MP, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Haryana, HP, Odisha, UP, West Bengal, Mizoram and Tripura.
Similarly, district-wise physical progress of the UPA’s flagship scheme was not very encouraging for the year 2013-14. The actual labour demand was below 50 per cent in many districts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand Karnataka, MP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Maharashtra, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu Kashmir, Kerala, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, UP, West Bengal and Nagaland, the official said.