On NREGA, ‘poor’ states have worst record: Minister

NEW DELHI: Just nine districts, all in the northeast, provided a full 100 days of employment to all job card holders last year. None of the so-called poverty endemic states was able to provide anywhere near full employment under NREGA.

Minister for rural development C P Joshi told Lok Sabha on Friday that the averages for NREGA fluctuated sharply with some states having had to pay a compensation under the law for failing to provide employment.

The states that have ended up paying compensation include Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala, Manipur and Jharkhand. NREGA has been consistently a poor performer in West Bengal where the average of days of employment has been 14 in 2006-07, 25 in 2007-08 and 26 in 2008-09. The average for Bihar has been 35, 22 and 26 for the same years but the state traditionally exports a lot of labour.

Joshi told TOI that the underperformance in a state like West Bengal, where the Left Front claimed to be sensitive to pro-poor issues, could bear deeper examination.

As NREGA was a needbased scheme, it could be the case that both employment and wages in excess of Rs 100 a day were available, curtailing the need for the programme. But evidence on ground did not suggest that this was the situation as employment was often seasonal and poverty had not declined.

The minister said that there were instances of sarpanches maintaining fraudulent job cards and siphoning money . He urged MPs to give information so that corrective action could be taken.