A collaborative Study by
IDEA Centre at MLS University, Udaipur
&
Lokniti: Programme for Comparative Democracy
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

I. Inroduction:
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is arguably the first ever legislation in the history of social security legislations in the post-independent India that has immense potentials to bring about a revolution in rural India. In fact, of all the schemes/programmes recently launched by the central government, MGNREGA is the most talked about and a large cross section of society has heard about this scheme. It is the first ever legislation that gives legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment during a financial year to any adult in rural areas willing to do unskilled manual labour. Moreover, it envisages time bound action for fulfillment of the guarantee. Anyone willing to do unskilled manual labour has to be employed on public works within 15 days of applying for work.

As a first ever right based programme, MGNREGA began in phased manner. In the first stage (2005-06), it covered 200 poorest districts of the country. Another 130 districts were added in the second phase (2007-08). With this, 330 out 619 districts were covered in the second phase. In April 2008, MGNREGA was extended to cover whole of rural India. It is widely held that no other schemes/programmes of rural development attracted so much public attention and raised expectation as MGNREGA has done in a brief span of time. If properly implemented, MGNREGA is seen to have great potential for alleviating rural distress.

However, for any scheme of this nature, there is a possibility of a gap between intentions/expectations and implementation. The implementation of NREGA is also said to be grappled with many problems. One, there is huge intra and interstate disparity in the level of awareness, implementation and effectiveness. Second, social composition (in terms of gender, caste, religion etc) of the eligible beneficiaries is reported to be extremely skewed. Third, the scheme is less benefiting those who happen to be the target of it - the rural poor. Fourth, there are discrepancies between amount of work done and payment received by the workers. Fifth, lack of transparency and deviation from norms at panchayat levels have let corruption in.

II. Gaps in and Limitations of Existing Studies:
There have been few studies to assess the working as well as performance of MGNREGS. For example, Bhatia and Dreze (2006) in their study of two districts in Jharkhand observe that though NREGA has created a sense of hope amongst the rural poor, it is not free from certain maladies such as fudging of muster roll, delays in wage payment, fictitious gram sabhas and role of intermediaries. Delay in wage payment was also reported in Palakkad district of Kerala by Jacob and Varghese (2006). Ambasta et al. (2008) in their study based in few districts of Chhattisgarh and Orissa endorsed some of the findings made in the earlier study and concluded that the scheme suffered from under staffing that resulted in inordinate delays in execution of work. There was also a lack of people’s planning and mockery of social audit. In a study of West Godavari district of Gujarat, Maheshwari (2009) found that there were huge discrepancies in the amount of work done and the wages received by the workers. Afridi (2008) in her study examined the bottlenecks in social auditing.

These studies thus have pointed out both pitfalls and positive impact of the scheme. Undoubtedly, findings of such studies inform us about how actually the scheme performs on the ground yet they do not contribute significantly to our understandings of the trajectories the scheme has been passing through. It is primarily because of two reasons. In the first place, existing studies are carried out at disparate levels and have limited coverage. In many cases, studies just cover one or few villages. Secondly, most of them touch upon limited range of issues involved in the functioning of the scheme. Most of them tend to examine systemic defects rather than probing the impact of the scheme on beneficiaries. The cumulative effect is that our understanding of how actually the scheme is working on the ground and impacting the lives of beneficiaries in different parts of the country remains inadequate.

III. What We Intend to Do and Why:
At the same time, following the norms of accountability and transparency, it is most essential that the government initiates the process of audit of the MGNREGA. This audit may involve three aspects: a) audit of the structure of the scheme and the allocation it gets; b) a check on the social profile of the beneficiaries and c) various procedural and/or implementation level bottlenecks/distortions/drawbacks. The purpose of such an audit need not be to put the implementing machinery in the dock; instead, this proposed audit will have following purposes: one, to equip the policy makers and the implementers with accurate information about the beneficiaries; two, to caution them about the gap if any between targeted beneficiaries and actual beneficiaries; three, to give feedback on popular expectations and perceptions; and four, to help the policy makers arrive at procedural and substantive modifications in the scheme.

The audit of the structure of MGNREGA and its procedures will be a one-time task to be undertaken at the desk rather than in the field; but it is possible only after undertaking field work on the various aspects of implementation. Therefore, it is necessary to do audit at all the three levels mentioned above (a, b and c).

IV. Methodology
We propose to undertake auditing of MGNREGA in the state of Rajasthan. The rationale for the selection of the Rajasthan lies in the fact that a great deal of civil society activism has taken place in the state and these organizations have played an important role in creating awareness of the rights of villages and in securing their entitlements and had taken a lead earlier. However, after the initial enthusiasm, the momentum seems to have taken a nosedive. Thus, a contextualized study of the state will unfold many nuggets of the working of NREGA; give further insights and feedback/feed in to the policy implementing agencies.

For this study we intend to select one district from each of the seven divisions in Rajasthan and one additional district for intensive study in that district. In each of the seven districts, two blocs will be sampled and in each bloc four Gram panchayats will be selected. While the districts have been identified on the basis of human development indices, social composition and performance in the MGNREGS, the blocs and the Gram panchayats have been selected using the sample random technique. In each village we will be sampling 10 households for being interviewed. We have selected Udaipur district for the intensive study and in this district we propose to select one-tenth Gram Panchayats from each bloc of the eleven blocks of the district.

Table 1: Sample Frame for the Survey in Rajasthan

The proposed study will involve both quantitative and qualitative tools. The qualitative part will have three components- focus group discussions, structured interview with officials at various levels (district, block and village level officials in all sampled districts) and eight case studies (one case studies in each district). The focus group discussion will include mates, social activists, beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The case studies will be an in-depth study of the whole experience of those who demanded work and got it. We intend to visit only two blocks in Udaipur district which has been chosen for intensive study and all other fourteen sampled blocks in seven districts.

The quantitative part will be based on sample survey of residents in all sampled locations. Respondent list will be made with the help of the voter list. A simple random selection of respondents from the voter list would help us in reaching both to the beneficiaries and non- beneficiaries of this scheme. The qualitative part of the study, namely the focused group discussions, case studies and the in-depth interview with officials’ at all three levels would help us in devising the structured questionnaire for the sample survey. The structured questionnaire will be used to ascertain opinions of the beneficiaries on various aspects of working of the scheme. A detailed description of sampling is as follows:

1. Division Udaipur: District Banswara
Bloc 1: Bagidora Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Karji
• Pindarma
• Nagawara
• Salia

Bloc 2: Sajjangarh Panchayat Samiti Gram Panchayat:

• Magarda
• Tambesra
• Sajjangarh
• Andeshwar

2. Division Ajmer: DistrictBhilwara
Bloc 1: Asind Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Karanasia
• Jeendras
• Sangramgarh
• Kailyas

Bloc 2: Mandalgrah Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Rajgarh
• Mahua
• Motaro ka Khera
• Sukhpura

3. Division Jodhpur: District Jaisalmer
Bloc 1: Jaisalmer Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Boha
• Basanpir (juni)
• Kanore Rawlotan
• Dena

Bloc 2: Sem Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Sem
• Mejlar
• Reewari
• Deora

4. Division Bharatpur: District Sawai Madhopur
Bloc 1: Gangapur Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Rendayal Goojar
• Meri
• Chooli
• Talawra

Bloc 2: Sawai Madhopur Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Jetwara Kala
• Kundra
• Ramri
< li>Jaunpura

5. Division Jaipur: District Churu
Bloc 1: Rajgarh Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Siddhmukh
• Ghanav
• Dhandhal
• Neema

Bloc 2: Sujangarh Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Shobhsar
• Barabar
• Jaitasar
• Kalyansar

6. Division Kota: District Jhalawar
Bloc 1: Khanpur Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Layphal
• Khandi
• Akawad Khurd
• Akodiya

Bloc 2: Jhalrapatan Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• Dungargaon
• Khanwara
• Khanpuria
• Ank-Kheri

7. Division Bikaner: District Sri Ganganagar
Bloc 1: Sri Raisinghnagar Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• 79 RB-A
• 8 PTD-A
• 38 PS
• 22 NP

Bloc 2: Gharsana Panchayat Samiti
Gram Panchayat:

• 1 GM-A
• 1 PSD-B
• 2 KM
• 15 RJD

District for intensive study: Udaipur

Gram Panchayats for intensive study in Udaipur district

V: Logistics of the Project

A. Collaborators in the proposed study

The IDEA Centre at MLS University, Udaipur and Lokniti at Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi would be joint collaborators of this project. The study would be designed and analyzed at Lokniti in consultation with IDEA Centre. The IDEA Centre at MLS University would coordinate the fieldwork for the study. An Advisory Committee will be constituted to monitor and guide this project.

B. Dissemination of Results

The deliverables of the study would be a detailed report based on both aggregate and disaggregate data collected from the field and other source of information.

C: Time Frame for the study The time frame for completion of this study from the date of commissioning of the project would take around twelve months. The time frame is given in details below:

Table 2: Time Frame for the study