PlanCom panel slams job scheme execution

Two of the ruling United Progressive Alliance’s flagship programmes, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for Naxal-affected and other tribal and backward districts, have been severely criticised by a Planning Commission committee.

On the MGNREGS, the committee said it had failed to check distress migration and wasn’t providing assured wages at stipulated rates.

On the IAP, the panel said the programme violated the Commission’s stated principle of decentralised participative planning and, therefore, went against the constitutional system. “Any continuation of the current mechanism of the three-member committee acting in isolation of the district planning process is a travesty of the constitutional system,” said the committee, constituted to advise on the priorities for the 12th five-year Plan.

The committee is headed by Planning Commission member Mihir Shah and includes Jean Dreze, former member of the National Advisory Council.

The IAP is a special area development programme for about 78 backward districts and tribal districts, including 34 naxal-hit districts. In 2010-11 and 2011-12, grants of Rs 25 crore and Rs 30 crore per district were sanctioned for the development of these areas, respectively.

The funds are spent by a panel comprising the district magistrate, the superintendent of police and the forest officer.

The panel suggested transferring the task of implementing the MGNREGS to a separate mission headed by a senior officer. It said the mission would work under the ministry of rural development. It also proposed involving the vast network of post offices across the country to distribute MGNREGS wages. “The post offices could be paid a commission of one-two per cent for handling the wage payments,” it said.

The MGNREGS was started in 2006 to provide a legal right to at least 100 days of unskilled wage employment to willing adult members. Initially implemented in 200 backward districts, the scheme was later extended across the country in two phases.

In its criticism, the panel said under the scheme, legal entitlements to unemployment allowance in case work was not provided on demand was non-functional. It also said the scheme was unable to reduce distress migration substantially, as workers were not assured of work when they needed it.

Assets under the MGNREGS had little relevance to livelihoods of the poor and there were significant delays in the payment of wages, the panel said. It suggested MGNREGS wages be revised every year on July 31 by linking these with the consumer price index for agricultural labour. “This would align with the timing of the supplementary Budget Estimates,” it said.