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Why, in spite of enormous sums spent on rural development and on slum improvement, neither has fared well. Why all that investment has produced so little benefit. What is basically wrong in our development paradigm?
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It is not lack of money but poor governance that is at the root of our poor performance. More money spent on schools where few teachers, if any, teach or on hospitals where doctors do not attend and have no medicines to give even when they want to, will not improve our social development.
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The immediate reaction of our administrators and of our politicians will be to call for more drastic rules and regulations. They forget that ours is a soft state, that few of our rules are ever enforced. Even if a zealous official were to attempt such a task, such orders will be countermanded by local politicians or even by top ones. What we need is not more drastic laws or rules but better and fairer implementation. BL 191009
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Agri GDP growth 4 times effective in reducing poverty :
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In the World Development Report 2008 released, the bank has advocated for “improving the investment climate for rural non-farm business and job schemes in rural areas”. Going into little more specifics, it said, “Job programmes could entail building rural roads, planting trees in denuded areas, and working to de-silt canals and ponds.”
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Greater investment in the primary sector is vital to the welfare of the rural poor. To buttress, the report says, “for the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times as effective in reducing poverty as the growth originating outside the sector.”
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Focus of the NREGA scheme is on the following works
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● Water conservation and water harvesting
● Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation)
● Irrigation canals (including micro and minor irrigation works)
● Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes or to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or that of the beneficiaries under the Indira Awas Yojana of the government of India and to small farmers.
● Renovation of traditional water bodies (including desilting of tanks)
● Land development
● Flood control and protection works (including drainage in water-logged areas)
● Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access
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| Rural roads give big lift for Develoment : |
A recent IFPRI paper by Fan, Gulati and Thorat estimated the impact of different government programmes on rural growth and poverty reduction in recent decades. Road investment gave the biggest uplift, followed by agricultural R&D, with education lagging some way behind. Subsidies on fertiliser, credit and power achieved rather little.
For every million rupees spent, roads raised 335 people above the poverty line, and R&D 323. Every million rupees spent on education reduced poverty by 109 people, and on irrigation by 67 people. The lowest returns came from subsidies that are the most popular with politicians - subsidies on credit (42 people), power (27 people) and fertilisers (24 people). |
Economist Robert Chambers said back in the 1970s. "If I had money, I would use it to build roads. If I had more money, I would build more roads. If I had still more money, I would build still more roads."
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A study by M. S. Bhatia (1999) showed that Indian States with the highest rural infrastructure index (a composite measure for rural electrification, roads, transport, health, irrigation, farm credit, fertiliser, agricultural marketing, research and extension) such as Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu have the highest foodgrain productivity per hectare and the States with the lowest index such as Rajasthan, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have the lowest productivity per hectare.
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Rs 1,58,000 crore deficit in rural infrastructure :
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The National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has estimated that rural India has a deficit of Rs 1,58,310 crore in the telecommunications, power, roads and transport, and water and sanitation sectors. NCAER’s recently released India Rural Infrastructure Report points at lack of both governance and finance as the causes. It strongly recommends decentralisation of delivery of the services mentioned above, and seeking fresh financing sources. Going by this estimate, even doubling of current allocations will not be enough to finance the deficit. CSE Feb 07
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| Rural water schemes leak: World Bank report : |
According to a recent report by the World Bank, India loses one per cent of its GDP because of the inefficiency of its rural water supply schemes. The report states that the loss of Rs 5000 crore per year is due to inefficiency of piped water supply systems in the ten states studied, while the loss due to schemes getting defunct was Rs1.9 billion per year. CSE Jul 08 |
Rural power plan fails to light up villages :
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The RGGVY programme is a part of the Bharat Nirman initiative and is a flagship programme of the government that was launched in April 2005. It aims to light up 1.25 lakh villages and provide electricity connections to 2.34 crore rural households by 2009.
Of the total 1.25 lakh villages to be covered under the programme, only 38,525 villages were electrified and just 6.72 lakh (of the targeted 2.34 crore) BPL households were provided electricity connections till 31 March 2007 – the end of the 10th Plan period. CSE Jul 08 |
| Misuse of NREGA Funds by 40%-Report : |
A report by the Government probe into the working of the NREGA, which has an annual budget of Rs 40,000 crore, revealed siphoning off funds to the extent of 40 per cent in key districts implementing the scheme. National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations. NREGA-BL 111009 |
| NREGA and Food Inflation : |
Food prices high at 13.34%: Prices of non-processed food articles were higher by 13.34 % (3rd Oct 09) compared to the same week last year. India's worst monsoon since 1972, followed by floods in parts of the country has hurt crops, pushing up prices of food items.
Great scope for building social capital on a massive scale. More than half a century ago, Ragnar Nurkse, the distinguished Cambridge economist, had pointed out that capital starved over-populated countries could build social capital in a big way by employing the surplus labour on a variety of projects. He had listed schemes concerning irrigation, drainage, roads, railways, housing, etc. In his view, the only danger was the onset of inflation caused by the increased demand for food and other wage goods. Though the Indian planners were aware of Nurkse’s prescription, they could not have implemented the idea in the pre-Green Revolution era of precarious food supply. Now we have ample stocks of food grains. And our industry will welcome the enhanced demand for consumer goods. We can, therefore, employ the surplus labour for building social capital in a big way without incurring any risk. P. S. Appu BL 141009 |
Comments: the prediction of Ragnar Nurkse has come true. Food prices are soaring, bulging buffer stocks not with standing. It shows that NREGA doesn’t result in production of food. S.R. Ram Posted on: Oct 14, 2009 at 07:52 IST |
| NREGS on Rainfed Lands: benefited labour more than the farmers-Study : |
A study was conducted in Anantapur district of A.P to assess the impact of NREGS on livelihoods and natural resources development.. Farm ponds, earthen and stone bunds were the common works carried out on farmlands. Other works included restoration of tanks and clearing of scrub jungles. Preliminary results indicate that the scheme benefited the labour more than the farmers. The scheme significantly reduced the migration. The earnings are used mainly for household food needs, family health, debt repayment followed by purchase of household assets. Farm ponds have contributed to increased crop yields through supplemental irrigation. CRIDA- NL. Jun 2009 |
| Deeper “backlash” against NREGA’ : |
| Delays in work measurement (themselves linked to the tyrannical behaviour of the engineering staff), bottlenecks in the flow of funds, irresponsible record-keeping (such as non-maintenance of muster rolls and job cards), and, yes, hurdles related to bank payments. Behind these specific hurdles is a deeper “backlash” against NREGA in many areas. With bank payments making it much harder to embezzle NREGA funds, the whole programme is now seen as a headache by many government functionaries: the workload remains but the “inducements” do not. Under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, workers must be paid within 15 days. Failing that, they are entitled to compensation under the Payment of Wages Act — up to Rs. 3,000 per aggrieved worker. However, except in one isolated instance in Jharkhand, compensation has never been paid. Jean Drèze-member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council. TH 190909 |
