Sir,
On 2nd February, 2016 MGNREGA completed its ten years. How it has performed is a debatable issue. Well! NDA has always evaluated it as digging and filling of pits and always on a hue and cry over the attachment of skill development programs to it. The earth work, as it is viewed by the opposition regimes is not a pit digging task because it empowers million of Indians. A well within a vicinity of a village is an infrastructure task for the village though it may not matter political regimes working for that village. When the bill pertaining to it was there in the house for the sanction, every single hand was up for its favour. So, is it a demand and supply driven? Yes; exactly, it is. Governments are cutting down on the scheme. They have provided sufficient funds for the first two quarters but when the Government`s desired targets are met, they cut on the funds and gasp the scheme of the required funds and when the scheme fails, they blame it on fundamental of the scheme.
MGNREGA is a dynamic scheme with high differences between the scheme successful states and not successful ones but what we need to understand is…. Where the scheme has not done well, it has still given the required empowerment and purchasing power to the rural poor. The thing is what type of participation the Government allows. Is it a down to top scheme or a top-down? We let our bureaucrats, Deputy Commissioners and beloved politicians decide what type of work a village requires under MGNREGA, what actually needed is… ? Local Panchayats and village level local bodies to decide what type of work is required in their vicinity and that’s what make the scheme useful and significant.
Yours etc…
Abhishek Sharma
Lecturer, The Business School
Bhadarwah Campus
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