National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005

1. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005 An Act to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work Strengthening the Right to Information Proactive Disclosure under RTI- Problems & Perspectives

2. Presentation Structure NREGA Status Proactive Disclosure, Social Audits, Complaints and Grievance Redressal New Initiatives Future direction and new initiatives Good Practices

3. NREGA Objectives Primary Supplement employment opportunities • Auxiliary Regenerate natural resource base for sustainable rural livelihoods • Water conservation & water harvesting • Drought Proofing (afforestation & tree plantation) • Irrigation canals, micro & minor irrigation works • Works individual land of SC/ST/BPL/IAY/ Land reform beneficiaries/ Small & Marginal farmers • Renovation of traditional water bodies • Land development • Flood control & protection, drainage • Rural connectivity • Process Outcomes • Strengthen grass root processes of democracy • Infuse transparency and accountability • in governance 3

4. NREGA National Overview

5. NREG Act: Pro-active Disclosure

6. Citizen Information Board

7. NREGA Information on Wall of Gram Panchayat

8. Muster Rolls at NREGA Worksite

9. MIS for Transparency & Accountability Management Information System (MIS) • To bring transparency in the whole system • Provide single window interface for all the stake holders of NREGA • Track transfer of funds to various implementing agency (sanction order, financial releases) • Prepare inventory of works/assets created under NREGA for future planning. • Register grievances of workers. • Details of works and workers • Separate pages for approximately 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats, 6465 Blocks, 619 Districts and 34 States & UTs.

10. Job Cards & Muster Rolls in Public Domain (http://nrega.nic.in) • Daily 40-50 thousand Muster Rolls are uploaded on the website by the States.

11. Social Audits Amendments in the Act to provide procedure for social audits • Social audits to be conducted once in six months • Prior planning and announcement of audit • DPC & PO responsible for audit (planning & availability of documents) • Formation of Social Audit Committee (workers & 1/3 women) • Documents made available 15 days prior to SAC for verification • Public representatives and concerned officials to attend • SAC to read out findings, ATR • Minutes recorded

12. Women at a Social Audit in Rajasthan

13. Grievance Redressal Mechanism Grievance Redressal Mechanism Complaints Penalty Provision • Amendment to the Act was made to provide procedure for effective redressal of complaints and enforcing Section 25

14. Helplines & Grievance Redressal Rules Helplines for receipt of complaints & forwarding to state/districts -Set up at Ministry -States- A.P, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, H.P, J&K, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Sikkim, U.P, Uttarakhand , W.B, Goa Grievance Redressal Rules Formulated by Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, H.P, J&K, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand

15. Financial Inclusion 7.75 crore NREGA bank and post office accounts have been opened -Separation of monitoring agency from payment agency -Encourages saving habits -Money directly in the hand of workers -Individual accounts in the name of women Amendment to sub-section I of Section 29 (Feb 2009) Payment through Business Correspondent Models using latest ICT technologies Smart Card & bio-metrics, ATMs Challenges -Poor coverage of bank and post office accounts -Delay in payments

16. Performance Feedback Sources External & Independent Mechanisms National Level Monitors Studies commissioned in 2006-07 (5 studies, 28 districts, 11 states) 2007-08 (6 studies, 33 districts, 11 states) Professional Institutional Network (18 institutions, 18 states, 60 districts) Statutory Mechanisms • CAG (Audit of 68 districts in 128 blocks and 513 GPs) 2006-07 • Central Employment Guarantee Council • Internal Mechanisms • MPRs & MIS • Performance Review Meetings • Area Officers for field verifications • State, district, block level inspections • Helplines, Complaints

17. Major Challenges Lack of adequate technical and administrative manpower at block and GP levels (full time dedicated Programme Officers, administrative and technical assistants) Lack of Awareness Non-maintenance of records like job cards, dated receipts, employment registers, measurement books, asset registers, Muster Rolls Non conduct of social audits Lack of adequate monitoring mechanisms Incorrect/non-standardized reporting of physical and financial achievements Instances of rent seeking and misuse of authority (inflated estimates, bogus muster rolls, fund diversion)

18. President’s Address to Parliament – 4 June 2009 … increasing transparency and public accountability of NREGA by enforcing social audit and ensuring grievance redressal by setting up district level ombudsman. ...To ensure transparency and public accountability, independent monitoring and grievance redressal mechanisms will be set up at the district level …

19. New Initiatives Social Audits Issue of instructions to the State Governments for enforcement of the new social audit provisions under NREGA  Organization of meeting of District Programme Coordinators at the State level for drawing up action plan for social audit Social Audit Calendar and monitoring of audits online -Details of action taken uploaded -Follow up action can be tracked down to the Gram Panchayat level Thirty sevenNational Level Monitor were deputed to 37 districts in 15 states for special monitoring of the social audit campaign initiated by the Ministry. Currently 89% of the Gram Panchayats are being covered under social audits

20. Instructions under Section 27 issued on establishment of district level Ombudsman to States (within 3 months of September 7, 2009) Ombudsman

23. NREGA with UIDA NREGA partnership with Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDA) has been initiated. The database of NREGA will be utilized by the UID Authority to expedite the development of the identification system for the residents.