Financial Constraints and Governance Challenges in MGNREGA across Gram Panchayats in Jhargram

Authors

  • Kausik K. Bhadra Kausik K.Bhadra, Research Scholar, Ph.D., Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD), New Delhi, India. Email: eco.kaushik@gmail.com Address: NIPFP, 18/2, Spl. Inst. Area, Satsang Vihar Marg, Opp. JNU East Gate, New Delhi – 110067, India. Mobile: +91 9711794309
  • Jayeeta Bhadra *Research Associate, Integrated Research and Action for Development, New Delhi, India. E-mail: jayeeta@irade.org
  • Subhadip Mukherjee Technical Assistant (MGNREGS) at Kharagpur–I Development Block, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India. E-mail: talk2subhadip@gmail.com

Keywords:

MGNREGS Governance, wage employment programme, labour budget, labour demand, labour supply

Abstract

This study is based on a two-pronged approach – one examines financial and physical issues in MGNREGA across Gram Panchayats in Jhargram block during the period 2012-14 and the other is based on interviews with people knowledgeable about this programme based on their association with it. Since it is demand driven programme and demand is projected through an approved labour budget, it has become an important policy concern for the government how the fund is not being optimally utilised as this programme has continuously been experiencing underutilisation of the funds since its inception in all the states. However, some explanations, based on the GPs in Jhargram, are presented on 1) incompatibility between the unspent balance of 2012-13 and the opening balance of 2013-14 across GPs, 2) during 2012-13, fund surplus in seven GPs was higher than unpaid labour payments, which raises a concern that why their wages was not met by such greater fund balance 3) declining employment provided to demanded ratio and 4) a significant decline in per household availability of funds.

References

Adhikari, A., and K Bhatia (2010), “NREGA Wage payments: Can We Bank on the Banks?”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLV, No. 1, January 2, 2010.

Das, U., A Singh and N Mahanto (2012), “Awareness about Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Some Evidences from the northern part of West Bengal, India”, Economics Bulletin, 2012, Vol. 32 No. 1 pp. 528-537.

Government of India (2013), MGNREGA: Operational Guidelines 2013, 4th Edition, Ministry of Rural Development, Department of Rural Development, New Delhi, available at www.nrega.nic.in

Government of West Bengal (2004), “West Bengal Human Development Report”, Development and Planning Department, Government of West Bengal.

Government of West Bengal (2011), “District Human Development Report: PaschimMedinipur”, Development and Planning Department, Government of West Bengal.

Mukherjee, C., White, H. and Wuyts, M. (1998), “Econometrics and Data Analysis for Developing Countries”, London: Routledge.

Raabe, K., R Birner, M Sekher, K G Gayathridevi, A Shilpi and E Schiffer (2010), “How to Overcome the Governance Challenges of Implementing NREGA: Insights from Bihar Using Process-Influence Mapping”, International Food Policy Research

Institute, Discussion Paper No. 00963, April 2010.

Vanaik, A., and Siddhartha (2008), “Bank Payments: End of Corruption in NREGA?”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIII, No. 17, April 26, 2008.

Downloads

Published

2014-07-01

How to Cite

Bhadra, K. K., Bhadra, J., & Mukherjee, S. (2014). Financial Constraints and Governance Challenges in MGNREGA across Gram Panchayats in Jhargram . Journal of Studies in Dynamics and Change (JSDC), 1(3). Retrieved from https://jsdconline.com/journal/jsdc/index.php/home/article/view/37

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 3 (2014): July 2014

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Both the journal and the author

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Readers and users of the Journal of Studies in Dynamics and Change (JSDC) are free to Share — copy and redistribute the papers published in the journal in any medium or format. However, the user (1) must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. (2) May not use the material for commercial purposes (3) Must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original if any remix, transform, or build upon the material is done.