Despite the fact that all the 18 districts in the state have been covered under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and more than 88 lakh job cards have been distributed so far in the state, West Bengal clearly seems to lag behind other states in terms of actual job provision or the average number of days provided with job per family.
Of the total 88 lakh job card holders in the state around 21 lakh have been provided with employment cumulatively till date.
While Madhya Pradesh (MP) has provided 9.96 per cent of the total job card holders with 100 days of employment and Rajasthan has provided 10.33 per cent, West Bengal has provided a meagre 0.24 per cent with 100 days employment till last month.
Also while MP has provided 35.92 per cent of the households (HH) with some work and Rajasthan with 52.70 percent of HH, the highest in India in 2008-09, till September, West Bengal only provided 15.15 percent of the HH with some work.
One of the major reason for this lacunae or shortfall, as told to Business Standard by an official in charge of this scheme from the P&RD dept, was paucity of funds as also lack of demand for jobs, this being an entirely demand driven scheme unlike previous employment schemes.
The state even faced a severe crunch of funds in the last two years, which primarily meets the wage needs, said the source.
He said,“The main reasons were unequal and illogical distribution of funds, besides frequent case of siphoning of funds or money laundering which caused some districts like Birbhum, Purulia, Jhargram, with good scope for the scheme falling short of funds and some districts sitting on extra cash."
This was primarily because the funds from the Centre would go directly to the district offices in the hands of the district program coordinator who looked after the disbursal of funds. The state P&RD department had no say on the disbursal inspite of knowing which districts required it.
Districts like Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum, Jhargram, part of West Medinipur, had huge potential as far as the scheme was concerned because of availability of land which suited the types of job provided under the scheme, he said. Infact, Bankura ranked highest in terms of average number of days provided with jobs per family last year, which was around 41 days compared to the state's average of 25 days per family.
Land, especially non-irrigable land was a basic requirement to provide jobs under this scheme. The jobs provided under this scheme in the state at a minimal wage of Rs 75 per day were mainly water conservation jobs, land levelling, road construction, drought proofing, plantation of trees ,mostly non-agricultural-based jobs, with a huge requirement for non-irrigated land.Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh rank high in the implementation of this scheme due to land availability.
Sekhar Sengupta, joint state programme coordinator, NREGA & Ex officio, joint secretary, P&RD dept, said “The state government has chalked out an aggressive plan in order to increase the average number of days provided with job per family from 25 to 40 days this year.”
It has earmarked a total budget of Rs 150 crore for spending this financial year and has asked the government for Rs 1,300 crore extra in order to meet the target with the peak season for this scheme beginning November-March, this being a lean season for agricultural or harvesting activity, he said.
