Economist and activist Jean Dreze, who had fervently criticised efforts to change the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by merging it with other schemes, has lauded the efforts of Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh to reform the scheme that provides 100 days of work to rural households.
“I think this is a good initiative and there are some good ideas in this discussion note,”’ Dreze told Business Standard about the nine-point reform programme unveiled by Ramesh for NREGA. However, he said many of those needed to be fleshed out and thought through. He hailed as significant the suggestion to activate Section 25 of the NREGA Act. The latter provides for levying penalties on officials who did not do their duty.
“Some suggestions are relatively simple and can have a major impact, for example, the activation of Section 25 of NREGA. Others could end up creating further complications, as the central government imposes cumbersome procedures that don’t necessarily fit with the way NREGA works in specific states,’’ he said.
He said the initiative was an opportunity to streamline NREGA, though how it would be used remained to be seen.
The nine-point agenda includes registration of every demand, beginning with 2,000 villages, creating labour budgets at the beginning of a financial year, creating a shelf of projects for more than one year, help centres in villages to take up grievances of villagers and a rotating fund in every state to ensure wages were paid on time.
The technology-based interventions are mainly to do with the demand for work through interactive voice mail service on telephone and use of business correspondents for making payments. These proposals have been put up on the website of the ministry, seeking comments from the public. The reforms can be carried out without any amendments in the Act, the minister has said.