Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is the flagship scheme of the Union Ministry of Rural Development initiated by the previous Government. This scheme envisaged on national level primarily supported the philosophy of integrated development of rural India. As such the essential condition of success of the scheme lay in convergence of various services aiming at creating sustainable developmental framework for the rural population in the country. As we know real India lives in her villages. Making India a prosperous country means changing economic and social conditions of the rural population drastically. But it cannot be done just by words. It calls for action and involvement. That is why good deal of discussion proceeded on the scheme and the methodology of its implementation was thoroughly set forth and comprehensive guidelines were provided to the State Governments.
J&K, being a hilly and less productive state of the country in terms of life and status of her rural population, was expected to make the best use of the scheme. Perhaps, it could have become a model state and a big beneficiary of the visionary scheme. But as ill luck would have it, here also our performance has not been only unsatisfactory but even dismal. We have lagged behind many states in implementing the scheme according to the given plan. For example, the important philosophy of the scheme has been the convergence of information so as to forge sustainable development input. The State Government seems to have evinced very cursory interest in the scheme for reasons better known to it. By and large, our State administration has not a commendable record of implementing Centrally sponsored schemes with efficiency and within the time schedule with the result that the funding of some of those schemes has either been withheld or terminated. We have been referring to this issue in these columns and we continue to insist on the Government of the State to address the issue as to why we become defaulters in implementing Centrally sponsored schemes? We shall have to take stock of the efficiency and competence of field operatives and the staff at other levels also and make sure that the schemes are given in proper hands that have the competence to handle these. In fact at one stage we even suggested that the Government constitute a small committee of senior or retired bureaucrats to go into the issue of non-implementation or part implementation of central schemes in the State. The people would want to know whether it is owing to inefficiency of the persons who are supposed to run the scheme or is it the result of internal subversion.
Among six main convergences are included the components of IEC meaning convergence of information, education and communication plans and 60 per cent participation of women in agriculture related pursuits. State administration has not so far produced any convergence plan for the current financial year. According to our information there has been only 20 per cent participation of women in the scheme as against stipulated 60 per cent or the norm set forth by the planners of the scheme, The card prepared by the Union Ministry of Rural Development for J&K shows that expenditure on agriculture and allied works taken up during the current financial year is at 48% as against mandatory 60%.
There are more areas of the scheme in which the State has performed poorly. According to MGNREGA rules the States are mandated to pay the daily allowance to a registered worker if he or she is not provided a job within 15 days of the receipt of job application and for this States are required to frame Unemployment Allowance Rules. So far the State Government has not implemented this clause of the Act for reasons better known to them only. The Union Ministry for Rural Development and the CAG both have expressed their deep concerns on defaulting tendency in the State administration in regard to such highly beneficial schemes of the Union Government aimed at changing the destiny of our vast rural population.
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