Five years after the launch of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) on which the Centre has spent over `1,10,700 crores so far, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will release a comprehensive review of the performance of the flagship scheme on Saturday.
The release of the review report is coming at a time when the job demands within MNREGA have seen more than 20 per cent decline in the last financial year, while a number of states could not spend their allocated funds under the flagship scheme.
The review report, a copy of which is with this newspaper, has listed achievements of MNREGA, including expenditure of over `1.10 lakh crores since 2006 and creation of 1,200 crore work mandays.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, in his foreword of the report, has mentioned that five crore families on an average have got employment each year since 2008 under MNREGA. “About 19 per cent of works taken under MNREGA have been for rural connectivity, while another 25 per cent had been for water conservation and rain water harvesting. Also, 14 per cent of works had been related to irrigation and 13 per cent dealing with flood control and drought management,” Mr Ramesh has mentioned in his foreword.
The report claims that based on a study conducted in six states it was found that 82 per cent widows depended on MNREGA for the source of their income, while 69 per cent women in the sample study stated that the flagship scheme saved them from starvation.
It has also rejected the contention that the MNREGA has been responsible for shortage of farm labour by claiming that 70 per cent of the job demands under the flagship scheme in 2010-11 came during lean farming season. It has also stated that the MNREGA has slowed down migration of the poor and has cited the example of western Orissa where migration came down by 45 per cent in 2009-10. However, the report has also noted that over 19 per cent who sought jobs under the MNREGA could not get employment.