New Delhi, Nov. 14: India’s largest social sector programme MGNREGA is set to introduce major reforms such as direct cash payment to labourers, central monitoring of grievances, focus on durable assets creation and provision of skill development for workers.
Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today said the biggest problem hampering the implementation of the scheme is delayed payment of wage to workers.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA’s showpiece scheme, provides for at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to every rural household. The beneficiaries have to get payment within 15 days. Workers are entitled to compensation in case they don’t get employment.
“In certain districts, the wage payment is delayed by six to seven months. The poor people lose interest in remaining associated with the programme. There is no alternative to cash payment in these areas,” Ramesh said.
At present, wage is directly transferred to bank and post office accounts of the workers. However, banks and postal departments do not have a strong presence in certain areas, mainly the tribal dominated and Naxalite-affected ones. As a result, workers often have to travel more than 20km to reach their banks to withdraw money.
In many states, the district administration delays the transfer of wages to accounts. Data compiled by the ministry shows that the objective of providing 100 days of work is yet to be achieved. Rather the average workdays per household has come down from 54 in 2009-10 to 47 in 2010-11.
When the programme was started in 2006, the workers were getting direct cash payment. However, the CAG found irregularities in cash payment procedure. The ministry then discontinued cash payment.
Ramesh said improvement of banking and postal infrastructure would be a long-run solution for the problem of delayed payment.
He said the scheme was laying excessive focus on building roads which get washed away every year. “The focus will be on land and water management projects. The aim is to increase productivity of land and create durable assets,” he said.
