GANGTOK, July 20 � The Mahatma Gandhi NREGA promises 100 days of wage employment for the rural people. It is India�s most ambitious government programme for the poor having a national budget outlay of Rs 39,100 crore.
MGNREGA has completed four years of implementation in Sikkim and the performance has been improving each year. In a performance evaluation conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, in the Performance Review Committee meeting held in Delhi on July 16, Sikkim was ranked second after Tripura in achieving the most important outcome � providing 100 days in a financial year to the rural people, informed a release issued today.
Sikkim could achieve 80 days on an average for the wage seekers, with 23 per cent of the households completing 100 days. This is significantly higher than the national achievement of 54 days. On this performance outcome, Rajasthan is ranked 3rd and Andhra Pradesh 4th. Sikkim also scores high on the transparency safeguards front, being the leading State in making the Ombudsman functional, having a universal coverage of social audits and having a virtual complaint-free implementation.
MGNREGA has provided unprecedented funds to rural Sikkim and is unmatched in its scale and volume, bottom up planning and implementation, procedural safeguards and transparency standards. No other scheme can boast of muster rolls being made available online in a web portal, 100 per cent cash-less wage payments and having multiple checks ranging from national level monitoring, financial audits, MIS alerts and most importantly the biannual social audits, added the release.
During social audits all the payment vouchers are read out in the gram sabha and audited by the people. In Sikkim, the nodal officers are the DDO at the District Level, BDO at the Block level and the Gram Panchayat at the village level. The schemes are proposed by the Gram Sabha, estimation done at the Block level by the concerned line department technical staff and sanction by the District Planning Committee (DPC).
This Scheme has been able to put money in the hands of the poorest of the poor on a scale that is unprecedented. During the last financial year 2009-10, 60 per cent (54,000) of the rural households were provided employment. A total sum of Rs 43 crore through wage payments was pumped into rural Sikkim through 57,000 bank and post office accounts, thereby creating a multiplier effect and stimulating the rural economy.
When these poor households spend this additional money, they create a demand for commodities. The production of these commodities, in turn, creates demand for capital, raw materials and workers. With this level of coverage and intensity, MGNREGA is increasingly becoming a lifeline of the rural women in the State.
MGNREGA was able to dignify labour work in the villages, and provided purchasing power and bargaining power to the rural households, the release added.
A number of new initiatives are being planned this year to further improve the impacts of this national flagship programme. An �Impact Assessment Study of MGNREGA Sikkim� in collaboration with the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), Gujrat is nearing completion.
