MGNREGS: Maharashtra says it will improve the numbers this year

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With Maharashtra’s farm economy hit by last year’s drought and then recurring hailstorms earlier this year, the state has also set an ambitious target for the labour budget this year, at a projected 1,087.96 lakh persondays. In comparison, for 2014-15, the labour budget was 564.17 lakh persondays, and 614.04 lakh persondays were actually generated.

Data on workdays for 2014-15 showed that Maharashtra, alongside Goa and Jharkhand, bucked a national downward trend by recording a small growth in comparison to the previous year.

“This year, we hope to make good progress by achieving at least 750 lakh persondays,” said an official overseeing the state’s NREGA implementation, admitting that the target of 1087.96 lakh persondays was rather ambitious. The cumulative persondays generated till June 29 is 229.45 lakh, about 44 per cent of demand projected until June but a good notch above last June’s numbers (officials say the demand for labour fell rapidly in past weeks, following June’s promising rains when farm labour gets busy with the sowing season and does not need work immediately). Also, following last year’s acute drought, the state is now pushing hard for using MGNREGA for drought-proofing works.

Of the 68,417 irrigation wells completed under the scheme since its inception, 21,216 were completed last year alone.
In the three months of 2015-16, 9,046 wells have been completed, and work is under way on another 77,431.
More than 25,000 of the completed wells are located in drought-hit Marathwada. In fact, of the 21,216 built last year, 9,341 were in this region.

On overall expenditure on the scheme too, it is the distressed Vidarbha and Marathwada regions that account for the maximum spends till date — the top 10 districts this year are Gondia, Chandrapur (which has already booked over 50 per cent of last year’s spend in the first three months of 2015-16), Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Amravati, Beed (which saw last year’s maximum expenditure), Yavatmal, Parbhani, Washim and Nanded.

An activist-researcher, who was among those who nine months ago signed a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing fears over a possible dilution of the MGNREGA programme, says Maharashtra’s administrative conditions are excellent right now for bureaucrats to deliver and ramp up systems under the scheme. “It’s good that there is greater support from the Centre, and there is also commitment from the bureaucracy. But there are structural issues — it is not a very worker-driven scheme in many parts. Where there are powerful farmer lobbies, the NREGA is often seen as only an agriculture scheme, a scheme to get a well for example,” said the researcher. “It’s important that this focus on agriculture does not undermine the basic premise of the scheme as a rights-based programme for those who need and can demand work. A better balance is necessary,” he added.

Of the state’s 34 districts, 25 have recorded 60 per cent or more of MGNREGA expenditure on agriculture and allied works in 2015-16 until now.

Last October, a survey by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) found that not only was Maharashtra’s MGNREGA supportive of agriculture, but a majority of the respondents in the survey were also likely to leverage the opportunities offered by the scheme to enhance their livelihood means. Additionally, small and marginal farmers were clearly the big beneficiaries.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the government was in the process of formulating a programme akin to Bihar’s pattern through which works such as planting of trees were included under MGNREGA.

Officials added that horticulture works, already undertaken under MGNREGA as under its precursor to the Employment Guarantee Scheme, were also to be given an impetus.