The Implementation Process of NREGA, A case study of Gulbarga district
Dr. PC Jaffer IAS[1].
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, was enacted in the Parliament to give statutory status to the right to work. This Act is a paradigm shift in the history of Poverty Reduction and wage employment programmes as this is the first time that the right to work has been given the status of the justiciable legal right. The Act entails penal provisions of compensation to the labour if the demand for work is not met within 15 days of putting forth the demand.
Following the Enactment of the Act, this ambitious programme has been implemented in selected 200 districts of the country. The main objective of the scheme is ‘to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work’. The NREGS was extended to 130 more districts during the second year. The Government of India has declared that the scheme will be extended to all the districts of the country from 1 April 2008.
A few salient features make this scheme unique among all the rural development programmes. Firstly, this is the first time in the history that the right to work has been accorded legal status. The demand for the work is supported by the statutory provisions. Thus the right work has been given the judicially enforceable legal status and thereby empowering the poor to bargain with the government. Once the bargaining power is wrested, the labourers would become aware of their other legal entitlements like the worksite facilities, minimum wage and the proper payment. The empowered hitherto unorganised workers are brought under a platform where they are organised as a social group.
This is a demand driven programme whereby the funds are provided for the implementation when and where there is demand for work from the villagers irrespective of the economic status of the family. There is no prescribed allocation of funds to any area. The funds are made available to the implementing agencies on the basis of the demands from the people. Thus, the right to work is guaranteed to all citizens without any constraints of the allocation. This is different from the previous approach where funds were allocated to various Grama Panchayat and implementing agencies and they were supposed to limit their activities to the prescribed extent.
Participatory planning and decentralised implementation are the specialities of the scheme. It is mandatory on the part of the govt to implement at least 50 per cent of the works by the Grama Panchayat. The process of planning in the district is explained later.
Since the scheme envisages the timely employment on demand, the process of the implementation and the preparatory activities are the most crucial in NREGS compared to all the previous poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes. This paper is an attempt to explain the process of NREGS in Gulbarga district with respect to the preparatory activities, planning, training, IEC and implantation.
The district was notified of the implementation of the scheme only in December 2005 and was asked to launch it from February. This left the district authorities hardly with just a month for the preparatory activities. Immediately after knowing about the scheme, a meeting of selected officers at the taluka and the district level officers was convened for a brain storming session. The meeting discussed about the strategy to be followed for implementing the scheme in the district. A meeting of the all the taluka level and district level implementing officers were convened on 1 Jan 2006 for the first round of training. This meeting was intended to orient the functionaries at the taluka level about the scheme. They in turn would train the functionaries at the village level. There was another round of meeting on 7 January 2006, which was attended by the representatives of the NGOs and the lead bank.
The focus at this stage was to educate the functionaries and elected representatives at the critical level regarding the nuances of the scheme and capture attain their confidence. The district administration has clearly realised the importance of the cooperation of people at this level and their wholehearted involvement. Modalities of registering all the eligible households and opening bank accounts for them were discussed in these meetings. The state government has deliberately taken the decision to make the payments through bank accounts only. The opening of bank accounts was the first step in doing the registration in NREGS. In the mean time, the State Institute of Rural Development imparted training to the officials and elected representatives through the satellite mode.
After the rounds of meetings at the taluka level, all the officials were involved in getting the people registered. Gram Sabhas and special meetings were conducted in all the villages so that the people could get themselves registered. Prior to this, a survey was conducted in the villages utilising the services of the volunteers of the literacy programme to assess the demand and willing of the people for the programme. This led to the next step of actual registration of the families. As explained earlier, the registration was to be after opening of the accounts in the banks or the post offices. This has turned out to be the most challenging aspect of the whole scheme. Eventhough the state has a good network of banks; the district being backward was not having enough bank branches that could cater to the demands for the scheme. The penetration of the banking network in the district has been shown in Table 1. Moreover, the shortage of staff in the rural branches and their initial non-cooperative attitude made the situation very difficult.
Table 1: Banking Status of the District.
| Sl No | Description | Numbers | % |
| 1 | 337 | | |
| 2 | Villages | 1363 | |
| 3 | Villages having banks at the head quarter | 090 | 06.60% |
| 4 | Banks within 5 KM | 752 | 51.17% |
| 5 | Banks 5-10 Km | 345 | 25.97% |
| 6 | Banks 10-15 KM | 119 | 08.73% |
| 7 | Banks beyond 15 KM | 057 | 04.18% |
Source: Office of the DPC, Gulbarga
The deliberations at the various levels and consultation with all the stakeholders have resulted in fixing the institutions where the accounts for the labourers have to be opened. The decision was to treat the Gram Panchayat as a single unit. Thus 105 GPs have decided to open accounts with the Scheduled Commercial Banks, 198 in Post Offices and 32 in Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies. Details are shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Details of the accounts opened in Gulbarga District.
| Sl No | Details | Number of accounts |
| 1 | Post Offices | 62313 |
| 2 | Scheduled Commercial Banks | 160798 |
| 3 | Co-operative Banks | 17946 |
| 4 | Post office accounts closed | 43996 |
| 5 | Post office accounts shifted but not closed | 25579 |
Source: Office of the DPC, Gulbarga
The opening of accounts at this huge numbers required a certain level of attitude and perception by all the stakeholders. The banks were not fully equipped to meet this heavy demand, the post offices did not have the competency to handle this level of workload, the people were not habituated of going to the banks and deferring the payments for a week and the officials were not familiar with the concept of transparency in distribution of the wages. The delay in processing of the application and opening of the accounts has reached a stage where the whole registration process was slowed down. The strategy was changed then. The idea came out in one of the meetings of the core group that the labourers have to be registered even without opening of the accounts. Instead they should be provided a bank account within ten days before the first payment is due. This will ease out the heavy load on the banks. The application can be filled in by the GP Secretary or any other functionary, got the signature of the labourer and transmitted to the banks. The bankers got around ten days to process them making it less than ten a day. This removed the perception of being overloaded by the banks while they are asked to handle huge application at the same time. The registrations were carried out in all the villages calling Gram Sabha as a one- time measure and keeping the registration open at the GP later. This has resulted in registering more than two lakhs of the rural households.
Table 3. The details of the registration under NREGS in Gulbarga District
| Sl. | Taluka | Rural households | Households registered | Job cards issued | Accounts opened | |
| 1 | Afzalpur | 27605 | 16190 | 16190 | 19905 | |
| 2 | Aland | 45036 | 20288 | 20288 | 29505 | |
| 3 | Chincholi | 36278 | 15996 | 15996 | 20730 | |
| 4 | Chittapur | 42710 | 20636 | 20636 | 21689 | |
| 5 | Gulbarga | 41633 | 20667 | 20667 | 22506 | |
| 6 | Jewargi | 38469 | 22117 | 22117 | 23744 | |
| 7 | Sedam | 29832 | 9961 | 9961 | 11600 | |
| 8 | Shahapur | 39917 | 24086 | 24086 | 25666 | |
| 9 | Shorapur | 46900 | 37675 | 37675 | 37850 | |
| 10 | Yadgir | 41327 | 27862 | 27862 | 27862 | |
| | Total | 389707 | 215478 | 215478 | 241057 |
Later, the district administration has realised the mistake of involving post offices. Once the scheme was six months old, post offices turned out to be the biggest bottleneck for the implementation of the programme in many places. The inordinate delay from the part of Post offices resulted in labourers losing confidence in the system. Various factors led to such a situation. Firstly, banking is not their core activity and they do not have the capacity to handle such a huge increase in the business. Secondly, the post offices do not have provisions to open institutional accounts with them. This has lead to a situation whereby the accounts of the labourers are with the post offices and the money of the Grama Panchayat is kept in the banks. This requires clearance of the cheques before making the payments. The clearance leads to inordinate delay in making the payments as there is no clearinghouse in the villages. Thirdly, the restrictions in carrying cash from head office to the branch and further to sub post offices restrict the volume of transaction per day. This has led to a situation whereby the payments were delayed beyond a month.
Such a situation compelled the Programme Officers to go for bank accounts for all the GP. This decision was taken following setting of the priorities properly. Timely payment was put above the payment at the doorsteps of the people. The bankers were requested to put a little extra effort to ensure that the payment to the labourers is made when and where they come to the banks. As on today, there are 241057 accounts being operated in the district.
The Planning Process
The NREGA makes it mandatory for the part of the Gram Panchayat to formulate the plans for the scheme after discussing in the Grama Sabha. The Act and the Guidelines are not very specific about the division of the works among various tiers of the PRIs. However, the guiding principles of decentralisation have to be followed in this case also. Hence roughly, the planning process and the division of the works among PRIs as implemented in the district is as follows.
The Grama Sabha was called in all the Grama Panchayats in the last week of January 2006 to discuss various aspects of the scheme and formulate plans consolidating the suggestion for all the works. The consolidated list of these works has to be submitted before the Gram Panchayat General body. The works identified by the line departments or suggested by the elected representatives of various levels also were placed before the GP. Thus, the GP discussed the whole list of works being suggested and approved the action plan observing the priorities of works given in the Act. The GPs have prepared the list of works separately for all the eight types of works described in the Act.
There would be certain woks among the list, which spread across various GPs. Such works need not be included in the GP action plan. A separate list of these suggested works are to be prepared. Once this process is over, the GP forwards the action plan to the Programme Officer. The Programme Officer scrutinises the plans submitted by the GPs. While scrutinising the plans, the PO verifies only whether the plans are prepared as per the Guidelines and the priorities are decided as per the Act. The Programme Officer does not have any powers to make any additions in the plans prepared by the GP. He can only remove those works which do not conform to the scheme guidelines or the improperly set priorities. The list of works that are concerned with more than one GP should be discussed by the TP and the action plan for the TP has to be finalised. Thus, the TP Action plan has two components namely, the consolidation of all the GP plans and the TP plan. Those works that require to be taken up across the Taluka are to be listed separately and forwarded to the ZP for approval.
While finalising the plans for the ZP, the same process is followed as it is in the case of TP. The ZP should discuss the works having the nature of inter taluka and the plans should be finalised in those lines. The ZP does not have power to include any works in the Plans of the GP or the TP. If any of the ZP members or any common citizen wants inclusion of works in the action plan, the DPC or the PO forwards it to the GP with a direction to consider it and decide as per the guidelines. The experience regarding the response of the GPs is mixed in this respect. There are instances where the GPs have rejected the suggestions on the ground that the ZP members do not have any right to interfere within their sphere of functioning. In some other cases, the GPs have accepted the proposals and included in the plan.
The next stage is the process of converting the suggestions in the perspective plan into ‘Shelf of Projects’. Once the ZP approves the plan, the technical wing of various agencies has to prepare the estimates for all the works. The list of the works along with the estimate constitutes the Shelf of Projects. Shelf of projects consists of all the projects with detailed and technically sound estimates so that the works can be taken up whenever required. The approval of the Grama Panchayat and by the technical personnel is the pre-requisite for completion of the preparatory stage by the Grama Panchayat. As per the rules existing in the state, the Grama Panchayts accords administrative approval for the works up to 10 lakhs rupees. Any work above this limit has to be submitted for the Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat for approval.
Training
Lot of emphasis has been given to the training and IEC components while the scheme was introduced in the district. The training was intensive and continued one for the stakeholders at various levels. At the initial stages, meetings were called exclusively for training. Later, once everyone were familiarised with the concepts, meetings were called for both monitoring and training. Any new directions from the government were passed on in these meetings. During the implementation of the scheme in the district, 13603 persondays have been sent on training stakeholders at various levels. It has to be mentioned that 7387 of these are used for training the non-officials. This indicates the efforts for sensitising the elected representatives and involving them in implementing the scheme.
State Institute of Rural Development has been imparting training to all the elected representatives of the district. However, it was very discouraging to see the poor response being given for these satellite based trainings. It required many rounds of continued persuasion to get many of them to the training venues. The progress was very slow despite the scheme completing six months. This has prompted the district administration to arrange a series of meeting involving the officials and elected representatives. These meetings were called at the Taluka places. It was supposed to be attended by the Adhyakshas and Secretaries of the GPs, Taluka and village level officials of the line departments, members of the Taluka Panchayat and Zilla Panchayat. All the senior officials at the district level attended these meetings.
These meetings were aimed refreshing the memory of the people at the block and village level as well as reviewing the performance of the scheme for six months. It found that there were a number of GPs that has not shown any interest in implementing the scheme. They kept the amount released to them unspent with them which made the matters difficult for the GP that were active in implementing the scheme. Following these meetings that went for a fortnight, action were initiated against more than 40 officials at various capacities for showing negligence towards the implementation of NREGS. Many of them were kept under suspension. Notices were issued to many GP Adhyakshas for keeping the money with them. By not utilising the amount, they have not only denied employment opportunity to the labourers from their area but made the better performing GPs to suffer by blocking the amount which otherwise would have been spent elsewhere. They have also put the district at disadvantage by delaying the release of further instalments of funds.
NREGS being a time bound scheme, the prompt release of funds is very important. This makes the proper account keeping a necessity. The capacity of the secretaries of the Grama Panchayat was limited in this aspect and very dismal in many cases. This was turning out to be one road block in taking the scheme ahead. Though the works have happened and payments are made, the expenditure statement received from the GP and Taluka many a times did not reflect the real time expenditure. It was decided to educate the GP secretaries on the procedure followed for accounting. Training in this regard was organised by the Zilla Panchayat in October 2006. All the secretaries were trained at the respective talukas. They were to bring the registers; bank passbook and cheque book to the meeting. Hands-on training was given to them. This has helped in reducing the number of misappropriation cases to the minimum under NREGS. Training on the same lines was organised for the engineers of the Panchayat Raj Engineering Division. They are the most crucial players in the implementation of the scheme as each Section Officer (either a Junior Engineer or an Assistant Engineer) is handling a cluster of three or four Grama Panchayats.
Later, in the month of November 2006, Gulbarga hosted the release of the NREGA soft prepared by the NIC. This has put a very challenging task of pitting the MIS in place. The Gram Panchayats being highly organised in the state, decision was taken to operationalise the MIS at GP. The post of computer operator cum accountant was created in each Grama Panchayat. The qualification was prescribed to be either a graduation of higher secondary in Commerce. This was later relaxed to science and then to arts as the availability of the candidate turned out to be a big issue.
The appointment was completely decentralised. The Grama Panchayats were empowered to recruit people who are preferably from the same GP or from the nearby areas. They had to take the clearance from the Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat as per the provisions of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act 1993. Since the GP has taken a decision, the CEO has to only check whether the selection was done properly and the recommended candidate fulfils the eligibility criteria. The CEO has decided to test the computer proficiency of the candidates and then approve the appointment. The Computer Science Department of the PDA Engineering college was asked test them. A committee was constituted for the competency testing under the chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary of the ZP. The District Officer, NIC and the Head, Computer Science Department were the other members. The committee has decided the competencies to be tested and supervised the testing. The experience was discouraging in the first round. Attaining 50% of the marks was made as the criteria to qualify and only 12 candidates were declared to be eligible in the first round. The rest of the candidates not approved, but were given time to appear the test again. Special training for them was also arranged by the NIC. After an year the district were successful in recruiting 309 operators for the GPs and ten for the talukas.
Detailed training was organised for the operators at the district and taluka level in four legs. This was followed by the practical training on the software. Later, computers were set in the taluka places and the operators were called in batched and asked to do the data feeding. This ensured that those GPs without an operator are not left behind in starting the MIS. In addition, this acted as a level of close monitoring over the operators. Noticing that the implementation of the MIS was yet to pick up, district level training was organised for the GP secretaries and the operators jointly. Due to large number of people being trained they were trained in three batches. CEO himself was present throughout the training. They were warned of sending home if not performed. This was intended to be a monthly affair and had shown the intended results in the third month. As a result of this, the district has got competent operators, who are deputed for many other activities from time to time.
IEC Activities
IEC activities were carried out in the district continuously from day one to popularise the scheme. Many meetings were held at the village where the senior officials from the district were participating. Training for the labourers were organised in collaboration with the labour groups to educate them about their rights. This led to a situation of formation of self help groups of NREGS labourers in many parts of the district. They were very vocal and started filing the demand for work in groups. The communication with these groups was regularly made at the district level. This acted as an alternative channel of information flow about the lapses of the administrative machinery. Whenever there were complaints about the laxity of the officials, a meetings was called to discuss the issues and set things right.
Before the scheme was launched, Grama Sabhas were organised in all the villages for educating people about the scheme. A booklet was printed showing the salient features of the Act in Kannada which was distributed to the people widely. The elected representatives at three tiers of the local government were educated about the scheme in the beginning. The efforts of the district administration got a boost when the Union Minister for Planning during his tour to the district chaired a meeting of all political parties and people’s representatives and appealed for their wholehearted cooperation for the successful implementation of the scheme. Likewise, a folder containing the features of the act and an appeal to the rural households were also printed and distributed. The salient features of the Act are painted at the prominent places in the villages. A board is put in front of the Grama Panchayat regarding the progress achieved under the scheme. It is also mentioned that the government of Karnataka made it mandatory for all the Grama Panchayats to exhibits the details of the activities of the GP in public.
Eventhough all these activities are carried out, the real impact among the rural households can be achieved only through the peer communication and word of mouth, as most of the target group are illiterates. For capturing their attention, with the help of Doordarshan Kendra, two documentaries were made which was shown to the villagers. There are regular phone in programmes both the All India Radio and Doordarshan. These being the mass media having penetration over the rural areas have the real impact of the IEC. The adult education department has prepared a song in Kannada which highlights the major features of the scheme and ask the villagers to come running and get their names registered in the Grama Panchayats. In other words, use of peer communication through grama sabha, mass media, songs were the real means of IEC in the district supplemented by the print media and literature. The media academy of Karnataka organised a training programme for the journalists from the rural areas in Gulbarga. A full session was dedicated to educating them about the scheme and explaining how NREGS is different from the other schemes.
Administrative mechanism
The project is being implemented as a centrally sponsored where the Central government provides for the 90 per cent of the expenditure. The Grama Panchayats are designated as the primary implementing agencies. Though the Act stipulates to implement at least 50 per cent of the works through the Gram Panchayats, the district has given the implementation of more than 75 per cent of the works to them. The selection of works and its implementation is done mainly by them in the state. The Executive Officer of the Taluka Panchayat (Intermediary Panchayat) is designated as the Programme Officer (PO) for NREGS. The Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat is designated as the District Programme Coordinator. Department of Watershed Development, Minor irrigation, Panchayti Raj Engineering and Social Forestry are the Executing Agencies in the district. No staff, technical or administrative has been provided exclusively for NREGS. This causes difficulties in the effective implementation of the programme to some extent. Considering this, the Government of Karnataka has recently issued orders to appoint technical support to the existing administrative system.
Financial Management
The fund for NREGS is allocated at the ratio of 90:10 by centre and state respectively unlike other programmes where the ratio is 75:25. The scheme is predominantly implemented through Grama Panchayat (GP). The money is directly released to the Programme Officer (block level) under four heads namely, labour account, material account, administrative account and unemployment allowance account. The first instalment of the funds was released to all the Grama Panchayat while the second instalment is released to the Grama Panchayat where there is a demand for work. The PO in turn releases the whole amount under the labour account to the GP. The money under the material component is released to the implementing agencies on a project-to-project basis. Thus it is the programme Officer at the block level who is the key to the success of the programme. The implementation of the scheme is highly decentralised to an extent that the material component for the works implemented by the Zilla Panchayat is released by the Programme Officer.
Convergence
Attempts are made do impart value addition to the scheme by attempting convergence of various other activities with the NREGS. One such activity is imparting literacy training to the labourers during the lunch break and some times after the work is over. This in the fist year has covered more than 5000 people who were made to put their signature in the muster rolls rather than their thumb impression. The labourers mainly females have now been able to read the text books comfortably. As a second level, the attempts are made to impart functional literacy to these people by educating them about various welfare programmes of the government and how to avail these benefits. This will be a real help to these people who are many times exploited by the officials and middlemen.
Another attempt for convergence is to bring labourers under health care. The doctors from the nearest Primary Health Centres conducted health check-up camps at the worksites. They were issued a health card detailing their health status. Some cases were referred to the hospitals for further treatment. Ideally, this should have been followed up with sharing of the expenses for the expert medical care. Talks were made with various insurance firms to come out with a plan that could be implemented for these labourers. Unfortunately, the district could not make much progress in this direction.
Monitoring and Inspections
Arrangements are made for effective monitoring of the scheme. The district is able to meet out the mandatory target of inspections. Details instructions were issued regarding the monitoring of the scheme. A district level officer is designated as the nodal officer for each taluka. He is to represent the Zilla Panchayat in that taluka. Review meetings are to be held under his chairmanship on 15th and 30th of every month. The meeting will is a forum for the interaction and troubleshooting for all the agencies involved in implementing the scheme. This is to be attended with all the implementing officers, their field staff, Grama Panchayat Secretaries and other officers. Major complaints of delay at GP, non-submission of NMR in time and delay in release of funds are discussed in the meeting and issues are addressed. Any issue that require the intervention of the CEO or the government are brought to the notice of the CEO in the fortnightly meetings to be held at the district level. This kind of a single window arrangement had a very strong role in stabilising the scheme in the district within no time.
The Nodal officers are to inspect the works and Grama Panchayats at regular interval. Any grievances related to the taluka also will be forwarded to the same officer. A checklist has been prepared for inspection of the worksites and the offices. The same system exists at the taluka level as well. A taluka level officer is made the nodal officer for a cluster of three or four Grama Panchayats. The DPC had consolidated all the relevant materials, circulars issued by the centre and state government as well as from the district. This compilation has been published in the form of a book which has been supplied to all the Grama Panchayats, Nodal Officers and elected representatives. This gives them a very good idea about the scheme. Various rounds of training have been conducted for the Nodal officers at the district level. This arrangement ensures that the field problems are brought to the notice of the higher levels without loss of much time so that corrective actions can be initiated immediately.
One such example of using the threats is the story of payment for the forestry works. Forest department was the first to start the works in the district immediately after the launch of the scheme. The works were carried out before everybody was fully aware of the statutory obligations of the Act. Thus, some GPs were sitting on the file for the payment of these labourers. They were expecting the officials concerned to meet them so that the percentage can be fixed and the bills be cleared. Those people were to have a shock when they found out which officials were to come to their GP. On hearing the news, the Deputy Commissioner, Chief Executive Officer of ZP and the DFO went to the GP accompanied by taluka level officials. The GP president and the secretary were questioned of the delay in payment. They had to agree that there was some delay. Both of them were made to sign the cheque in presence of the battery of senior official. They were asked to send the cheque to the bank immediately. This sent a very strong signal to others that NREGS is a scheme with a difference where the top level officials are taking personal interest. One GP in a few taluka was enough to establish the importance of the scheme. This has obviously helped in gaining the confidence of the workers also.
Conclusion
An attempt has been made to document the processes that are followed in the district during the implementation of the scheme. Though many ideas have been put into use in the district, the district administration realises that much is yet to be done for taking the scheme further. The intention of this paper is to make other know of the activities and inviting the critical comments and suggestions for further improvements, keeping the practicality in mind.
[1] The author is a member of the Indian Administrative Services and presently posted as Direcotr, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, in the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department, Govt of Karnataka, Bangalore. This paper is based on his experiences while working as District Programme Coordinator of NREGS and the review of the data available in his office. The analyses follow the extensive filed visits and interviews with various stakeholders. The opinions expressed in this article are of the author and need not reflect that of the organisation and the government he represents. This paper has been originally presented in the Seminar on “NREGA Design, Process and Impact” organized by Ministry of Rural Development, Govt of India on 16 May 2008 and forms a chapter in the Book “NREGA Designs and Processes” published by UNDP as the proceedings of the Seminar.
