Reduced by 34%, five months to go, 90% NREGA budget used up: Advocacy group

The rural jobs advocacy group, People's Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), has taken strong exception to the Government of India reducing the total budget for implementing schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in the FY 2021-22, which “is 34% less than the budget for the previous year, even though the effects of Covid-19 have not abated.”
Pointing out that almost 90% of the allocated budget for the current financial year has been “used up till now, with five months of the programme still remaining”, releasing its new NREGA tracker on wage payments, it particularly noted, “The remaining funds can cover at most 13 days of employment per household for the rest of the year.”
The PAEG tracker is an attempt to monitor NREGA performance by making some key data available in an accessible manner. It is based on publicly available data from the NREGA Management Information System (MIS). Through this effort, it hopes to generate public interest in monitoring it, prompt further reporting and organise workers to demand and access their entitlements.
The sharp reduction in NREGA budget comes, according to PAEG, at a time when the number of persons seeking jobs under the scheme has been going up each year. Thus, “A total of 7.75 crore households were provided work in the financial year (FY) 2020-21. This is an increase of over 41% from the number of households provided with work in 2019-20.”
It added, “In 2020-21, a total of 389 crore persondays of work was generated, an increase of more than 53% compared to the previous year”, yet, it complained, “In the FY 2021-22 the Central government has reduced NREGA budget allocation despite the evident importance of NREGA during the first wave and the devastating economic impact of the second wave.”
Suggesting poor management of NREGA funds, PAEG said, “Around 24% of the total allocated budget for the FY 2021-22 is being spent to clear pending payments of last year”, noting, in the current financial year many rural workers are unable to get jobs under NREGA, even though they demand for it.

Thus, while data suggest that “198.33 crore persondays of work have been generated in the first half of this FY”, which is “a decrease of around 26% when compared to the same period of last year”, the fact is, “Out of the total persondays of employment that were projected to be generated, only 91% has been generated”. Also, “13% of the total households that demanded employment did not get employment.”
Futher, according to PAEG, “Out of the total households employed under NREGA, only around 6% of households were employed for 81-99 days whereas only around 2% were completed 100 days”, adding, “For the first six months of the year, around 15% of total payments are pending to be paid by the Government of India.”
Interestingly, NREGA mismanagement has been happening “even though the Ministry of Rural Development and State Governments report that social audits are happening on the ground, concurrent social audit reports are still not available in the public domain in violation of the Auditing Standards of Social Audit as laid down by the Comptroller and Auditor Genernal of India”, said PAEG.

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

Search This Blog