Urgent need to revamp Mahatma Gandhi NREGA: Economic Survey

Calling for an urgent revamp of previous UPA government's flagship job guarantee programme, Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, the Economic Survey today said it needs to be made more development oriented and prevent its misuse.
The survey also said there is a need for revamp or reorganisation of some of the ongoing social-sector schemes, including the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).
The survey said that despite huge outlays, most schemes have not achieved desired results.
"The outlays for the different schemes have not often translated fully into outcomes owing to the poor delivery mechanism," it said.

Pointing out flaws in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), the pre-budget document said: "Though the act is panchayat-centric and demand based, on the ground there is lack of principal role in planning, execution and monitoring by the panchayati raj institutions (PRI's) especially the gram sabha".
"The awareness level in the gram sabha/PRIs is very low also resulting in lack of ownership, ill-conceived planning and shelf of projects, and weak or even no social audit," it added.

MNREGA programme is aimed at providing not less than 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household. The outlay for the scheme in 2013-14 was Rs 33,000 crore.

The survey further said that in some places only female workers were interested in availing of work as market wage for males is much higher, resulting in only small works of lesser utility being undertaken instead of big and tangible projects.
"The need for community projects is becoming less important as probably such works have already been completed or are on the brink of saturation or on account of lack of common interest in public works," it said.
There is a need to avoid projects with single or small number of beneficiaries and the use of MNREGA funds in a supply-driven mode.

"So there is an urgent need to revamp the MGREGA to prevent its misuse and make it development oriented programme creating tangible and meaningful assets and infrastructure including tourism related infrastructure or some large agriculture related activities," it added.
Regarding NRLM, the survey said the mismatch in the scope of activities and large amount of investment made in infrastructure like buildings and equipment needs to be looked into.