Sep 7, 2005 - as an entitlementsâ under MGNREGAâ, (Ref to FM's budget speech 2009). It is also radical ... note shortage of dedicated personnel, poor training facilities and lack of ..... with a smart card reader networked to the bank server.
FINAL REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON
CAPACITY BUILDING VOLUME 1: MAIN REPORT
CENTRAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE COUNCIL
MEMBERS OF THE WORKING GROUP Ashwani Kumar (Member, Central Council) ----Chairman Pramathesh Ambasta (SPS, MP) --------------------Member Ved Arya (SRIJAN, Delhi) -----------------------------Member Dr. Bhagirathi Panda (NEHU, Shillong) ----------—Member Prof. S.Narayan (Institute of Social Studies, Delhi) ---- Member Mr. P.K. Kesavan, Director, MoPR (GoI)------Member Mr. SK Singh, JS, Department of Rural Development, (GoB)--Member Mr. Badrinarayan, Add. Commissioner, MGNREGA (Govt. of Rajasthan)--Member
16 AUGUST 2010
Acknowledgement At the outset, the Working Group thanks Dr. CP Joshi, Hon’ble Minister RD (GoI) for initiating the process of governance reforms for MGNREGA. The Working Group is thankful to Dr Mihir Shah, Member Planning Commission, Shri BK Sinha, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, Shri MMP Sinha, IAS, Secretary, MoPR and Ms. Amita Sharma, IAS, Joint Secretary (MGNREGA), Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India for their guidance and unstinted support. The Working Groups places its special thanks to Shri Mathew C. Kunnumkal, IAS, Director General and Dr MV Rao, IAS, Registrar & Director (Administration) of National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad for their logistic and coordination support. We also place on record the support of Shri K. Raju, IAS, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, Shri T Vijai Kumar, IAS, Joint Secretary, NRLM, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, Shri Rajashekhar, Chief Executive Officer, APSERP, Hyderabad, Shri Phani Kumar, Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development, Hyderabad, Shri SM Vijayanand, IAS, Principal Secretary, Local Self Government, Govt. of Kerala, Shri Santhosh Mathew, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Bihar, Mr. Vijay Prakash, IAS, Secretary , Planning, Govt. of Bihar, Shri R Parasuram, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Government of Madhya Pradesh, Shri Shiv Shekhar Shukla, CEO, SREGS, Madhya Pradesh, Shri C S Rajan, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Government of Rajasthan, Mr. Tanmay Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Rural Development and Commissioner, MGNREGA, Govt. of Rajasthan, Shri Arun Kumar, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Assam, Ms. Swahil, IAS, Additional Commissioner, MGNREGA(Chhattisgarh) and Mr. Brahma Dutt Tiwari, SDO, Sohara district. and Collectors and District Magistrates of Jehanabad, Gaya, Khagria districts in Bihar. The Working Group also thanks Prof. Vinay Singh, Director, NIRD-NERC(Guwahati) and Prof. Ramakanthan, Director, Kerala Institute of Local Administration,(KILA) Thrissur, Kerala, Prof.Hemanth Rao, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, Prof. G. Nagraj of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Dr Jayashankar, IRS, Additional Director, DTA, Nagpur, Shri Prashuram Roy, CFES, New Delhi, Achut Das, Director Agramgamee, Kashipur, Orissa for their support and knowledge sharing The Working Group appreciates continuous logistic support received from Dr. Rajani Kant, NIRD ( Logistic Coordinator for the working group) and also thank Prof. K. Hanumantha Rao, Professor & Head, Centre for Wage Employment and Poverty Alleviation, NIRD, Ms. P. Leelavathi, Visiting Fellow (CWEPA), NIRD, Dr Joseph Abraham, Mr. David Brenyard, Consultants (CWEPA), Mr K. Sudhir Kumar, Stenographer (CESD) and Ms. B. Prasanna, Electronic and Data Processing Assistant (CWEPA) of National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad. We, in the end, are grateful to labourers for their continuing hope in MGNREGA! Chairperson and Members 2
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Index Preface
1
Executive Summary
2
1
Introduction
17
2
Human Resource Development Reforms
22
3
Capacity Building for MGNREGA
28
4
A New Cyber Structure for MGNREGA
45
5
Strengthening Research and Evaluation Systems for MGNREGA
57
6
Capacity Building Reforms for Training
61
7
Governance Reforms for Capacity Building
68
8
Capacity Building Recommendations for North East
77
9
Conclusion: A New Era of Governance for MGNREGA!
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ANNEXURES
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PREFACE The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) notified on 7th September, 2005, aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour. On 2 February 2006, Prime Minster Dr. Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi travelled to Bandlapalli village in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh to launch the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’ (NREGS) as the most radical and largest plan of public employment, poverty reduction and rural development in the human history. From 200 districts, the plan has now been extended to cover all of rural India. The guarantee of 100 days of unskilled works now extends to more than 5.8 crore households in 2009-10, has generated 777 crore personday since 2006, covers now about 79 lakh work projects and it has also led to opening of about 9.19 crore bank/post office accounts, a rare feat in the history of financial inclusion of poor in the socio- economic architecture in India. First of its kind, nationally and internationally, MGNREGA with its rights-based framework and focus on creation of ‘durable assets’, and propelled by proactive disclosures rules of right to information, has the potential to address the challenges of rural unemployment, food security and regenerate the village economy in India. MGNREGA’s most significant impact has been on the Minimum Wages Act as awareness about minimum wages has increased considerably and the notified minimum wages rates have gone up especially after the Government of India decided to provide ‘ a real wage of Rs 100 a day as an entitlements” under MGNREGA”, (Ref to FM’s budget speech 2009). It is also radical in the sense that it ensures rural labourers to have a legal entitlement not only to work on demand but also to minimum wages and in case of non-availability of work, the poor labourer is entitled to unemployment allowance. Similarly, the Act by emphasizing lateral public accountability systems like social audits, and proactive disclosure of information has internalized the spirit of transparency and accountability enshrined in the Right to information Act. Centrality of the Panchayati Raj Institutions in the implementation of MGNREGA has the potential to institutionalize people’s power at the grassroots and radically transform governance in rural areas. The government has also taken a giant leap by owning up the responsibility of providing complete fiscal resources and administrative mechanisms for implementing MGNREGA. All these call for innovating new governance structures, mainstreaming existing service delivery mechanisms, and re-designing more effective means of public monitoring for successful expansion and consolidation of MGNREGA. This indeed requires a paradigm shift in the way ‘capacity building’ has been conceptualized and mainstreamed in the implementation of MGNREGA.
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Executive Summary Working Group on Capacity Building for MGNREGA MGNREGA with its rights-based framework and focus on creation of ‘durable assets’, has the potential to address the challenges of rural unemployment, food security and regenerate the village economy in India. In order to realize the goals that MGNREGA has set out for itself, there need to be first and foremost human capacities. The capabilities of these human capacities need to be developed so that they are able to undertake the responsibility mandated to them. Human capacities and capabilities further need to be backed by proper supporting institutions, which act as decision support systems, assisting in concurrent monitoring of outcomes and better management of the schemes initiated under MGNREGA. The Working Group proposes to define capacity building not as ordinary shortage of staff and lack of training facilities but as the dynamic process of developing, strengthening and institutionalizing the ‘rules of game’, norms, standard operating procedures, skills, abilities, and resources that organizations, communities and individuals need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fast-changing world of policy implementation.
Capacity building, broadly speaking, has two major aspects; for organizations, it relates to whole gamut of governance, administration (including human resources, financial management, and legal matters), business processes, program development, evaluation, and policy changes for innovation. For individuals, capacity building refers to excellence in individual performance, leadership development, socializing managerial values, technical skills, training opportunities, organizing abilities, and other areas of personal and professional development that includes sensitivity to values of equity, participation and inclusion. Thus, individual empowerment eventually needs to result in the ‘communitization of capacities’ especially marginalized and socially excluded groups in the society.
Issues. The Working group found the following issues bedeviling the implementation of MGNREGA with special reference to the capacity building aspects.
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1. Inadequate Coordination among horizontal and vertical tiers of the government at various levels. Bedevilled by usual principal-agent conflicts, various institutional structures are not working in tandem and District Collectors (DPC) and Program Officers are still struggling with conflicting demands of vertical and horizontal coordination across departments and different tiers of government especially Panchayati Raj in the implementation of MGNREGA. For instance, Maharashtra has not suffered not only from lack of social mobilization of agricultural labourers and work site management issues but also from the usual bureaucratic turf wars and coordination conflicts between Chief Executive Officers of Zila Parishad and Collectors. 2. Poorly Crafted Administrative Systems. Some governments, for example, Bihar, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, continue to suffer from ‘deficits’ of poorly crafted and inadequate administrative and management systems at all levels. The innovation of a separate ‘MGNREGA cell’ has not yet produced desired outcomes and contracting out of support services in the states has been mostly inefficient and suboptimal in the absence of a coherent policy (Refer to Annexure on Chhattisgarh). The indifference of states towards Human development issues is writ large as other than Chhattisgarh, states failed to respond to the detailed questionnaire of the working group. 3. Shortage of Professionals and Training Facilities. Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks not only note shortage of dedicated personnel, poor training facilities and lack of community participation. Bogged down by outdated models of pedagogy and usual bureaucratic inertia NIRD and SIRDs have not been able to bridge the demand-supply gap in training needs of MGNREGA staff. 4. Ad Hoc Appointments of Professional Staff, Inadequate Compensation and Turnover. Unwittingly or otherwise, the government incentivized ad hoc appointments of low quality staff in large numbers, with every RD secretary and district collector somehow scrambling to recruit whoever s/he could get in the local job market. Many states suffer from high staff turnover. The process failed to take into account the fact that the Indian job market for professionals has become open and nationalized and salary expectations are to be calibrated to the demand-supply phenomenon. 5. Dissatisfaction among Contract Staff. We find evidence of growing dissatisfaction of the staff especially those ‘contract staff’ with regard to poor working conditions and arbitrary contract appointment policies of various state governments. Except AP, no state government has yet formulated a clearly articulated Human Resource Development policy. 6. Failed experiments of social mobilization such as “Gaon Sathi” in Orissa and the idea of providing ‘uniform’ for mates and Rozgar Sevaks in Jharkhand, a state battling against ‘uniformed and un-uniformed’ Maoist rebels. At the same time there is acceptance in some states that SHGs be mobilized. 7. Lack of Strong Governance System at the National and State Level. The current system is mired into departmental rules and functioning style and 3
doesn’t have the strong management teams that can function autonomously to support the mission mode that is needed to realize the true objectives of MGNREGA. 8. Lack of Dedicated Pro-active Teams of professionals at the Cutting Edge. Barring a couple of states such as AP and Rajasthan, the implementation structure stops at the block level, relying as it does on Panchayats whose implementation capacities vary widely across states and districts. Thus often the system is in reactive and fire fighting mode rather than in a pro-active mode with adequate capacities to plan ahead and to implement these plans well. 9. There is a huge gap in training system, characterized by the following: (a) Training institutions has very little practical experience of doing what they are training in and have very little touch with the intricacies of ground-level realities, implementation and social engineering; (b) Training institutions are located at a geographical distance, far removed from where the actual development intervention is scheduled to take place; (c) These institutes are run by personnel who speak a language which is largely incomprehensible to the people and whose attitude is didactic rather than dialogic, and who seem to lack the passion for the work which their training will enable; and (d) There is little follow-up in the field to ensure that the benefits of training are materialized at the field-level for which it was meant; and (e) there is near absence of any kind of role assigned to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in this crucial area. 10. There is little in-house capacity to undertake evaluation and assessment of MGNREGA on a continuous and comprehensive basis; PIN (professional Institutional network) of MoRD is basically a network for post facto analysis and run mostly by bureaucratic fiats rather than experts and professionals. As a result of this, continuous policy analysis and feedback for course correction in the policy is often lacking. As states have not yet developed any robust mechanism of evaluation or assessment, the MIS of MoRD remains the only source of public scrutiny of the implementation of MGRNEGA; we are aware that MIS suffers from reporting discrepancy between states and the Center. So establishing an evaluation system becomes urgent. 11. Capacity Deficiency in MGNREGA in North East. Deficiency in capacity is found in all the three levels i.e. (i) Individual stakeholders(workers, govt. officers and officials, PRI functionaries, functionaries of officials created under act in the absence of PRI system, neighborhood functionaries etc.), (ii) community and (iii) institutions involved in implementation and monitoring of this programme. Often the deficiency in one of these stakeholders affects the other and vice-versa. For example, capacity deficiency in institutions leads to capacity deficiency in individual stakeholders and community and vice-versa. Hence, in the North-East, there exists a high level of capacity deficiency in rural development programmes in general and MGNREGA in particular. These low capacity bases in these three levels act and react upon each other keeping the overall level of capacity in MGNREGA delivery in the region in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. To be specific these deficiencies 4
manifest in the front of manpower availability, training institutions, capability of the institutions to undertake and impart training, training modules, institutional capacity to mobilize workers, PRIs and their functionaries, civil society, governance and leadership.
Recommendations
Working Group’s recommendations are as follows in brief:
1. The term “Administrative Expenses’ needs to be replaced by “Capacity Building” Expenses. a. Revamping Technical Secretariat with reengineering of management processes and administrative systems at the National Level; A new era of professional and citizen centric governance needs to begin in the Technical Secretariat in which professional support could be taken from senior development professionals and experts for providing support in the key areas of implementation as mentioned in the section 11 of the Act. This could be done through deputation, secondment and lateral entry from public, private and voluntary sector in a transparent manner with clearly defined job profiles and terms. For improving the management of human resources, ensuring effective performance and providing responsive service, the Technical Secretariat needs to consider reorganizing its existing management system along key functions such as grievance redressal, human resources, Information technology, monitoring, evaluation and social audit. In short, reorganization and expansion of technical Secretariat is urgently required to maintain the integrity and accountability of the government in the program Each unit or section in the Technical Secretariat needs to be reconfigured in terms of clearly delineated roles, functions, and outcomes. 2. Independent Society at the State level. It is recommended to set up an "Independent Society" with Chief Minister as Chair and Rural Development Minister as Deputy Chair, and Principal Secretary RD as member -secretary within the nodal agency of department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Bihar is actively pursuing this approach (refer to appendix on Bihar). The Society would be operated by a Governing Committee/Council (GC) and present Commissioner (NREGA) would be the CEO or ‘State Programme Coordinator’ assuming full responsibility for implementing MGNREGA, 5
assisted by a Directorate comprising subject specialists/experts and support staff. The other members of the GC could be secretaries from Planning, water resources, finance, labour, road, environment & forest. Two to three prominent members from the civil society especially involved in the implementation of Employment Guarantee programmes/Social Audit/ Rural Entrepreneurship could also be nominated to the GC for a policy advice , feedback and interface with civil society. 3. MGNREGA Spearhead Team (NST) at the Cutting Edge of Implementation. This would be called “Program Facilitation Team (PFT) A very strong fulltime spearhead team is needed at the sub-block level, which can easily reach out to the poor and wage seekers on a daily basis and mobilize and empower, them to make demands on the system for realizations of their rights;. a. Such a dedicated PFT will help prepare an annual micro-plan for each gram panchayat resulting in shelf of works and annual budget estimates (material and labour budget both). The PFT will train Gram Panchayat representatives and functionaries and work with them on all aspects such as implementation, asset verification, measurement and payment, and monitoring and evaluation, MIS maintenance, and social audit. b. NST PFT will compose of three members including the team leader to perform the following functions: (i) Social mobilization and awareness raising about their rights (reaching out potential job seekers, through SHGs or otherwise), (ii) Surveying, planning and budgeting of individual works apart from infrastructure and rehabilitation of common property resources such as pastures tanks, rivers and streams, canals; (iii) monitoring and measurement; and (iv) payment, accounts and MIS keeping. At least one person needs to be from IT background. 4. Village Development Cluster. NST PFT will reach to a population about a third of a block, or about 30 villages, and in terms of geographical area a maximum of 15,000 hectare. This aligns with the recommendations of the WG on Planning and Execution which also defines the village development cluster. Thus, there would be, in most cases, three NS PFTs in a block each led by a NST PFT team leader and reporting to the Program Officer at the block level. 5. Full Involvement of Institutions of the Poor such as SHGs and Federations. WG makes a strong recommendation of ensuring full involvement of women self help groups in micro-planning, monitoring, as well as in social audit exercises. MP government has shown willingness to look at this idea.
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6. Harnessing NGO Capacities in Mobilisation, Micro Planning, Building PRI capacity, and Support in Implementation. Looking to the proposals of MP and Rajasthan governments, roles for NGOs could be worked out as per their core competence and track record of implementation. MP Government has identified micro-planning as well as implementation roles while they train and support the PRIs in works related to community ponds, roads and wells. With active involvement of CAPART, the role of NGOs in the capacity building for MGNREGA could be reconceptualized and made an integral part of the implementation. This also aligns with the Ministry’s proposal of Lok Sewak and the original directive to involve reputed NGOs. Section 4.6 elaborates the role of NGOs as Lok Sewaks further and suggests allocation of 6 per cent of the expenditure for their effort. 7. Urgent HR related reforms;(a) Working group strongly recommends formulation of a comprehensive HR policy for contract staff in each state that inter alia have the features such as specification of their salary in scales and grades, annual increments, leaves, transfer norms, travel allowances, cell phone allowance, lap top allowance, and grievance redressal(b) States should adopt a scientific and unbiased process in recruitment and selection of professionals to get the best out of the national pool. Methodology must eliminate biases in selection, especially over-reliance on interviews. It should include tests not just for cognitive ability (Intelligence Quotient tests) but tests for attitudes such as ability to work in teams, empathy with the poor in the villages and achievement motivation. Such recruitments could be outsourced to credible agencies, backed by administrative and political support as has been done in number of states (livelihoods projects) such as Bihar and Tamil Nadu. A four-step process has been laid out in the main text. 8. We strongly recommend that a similar system of recruitment and selection is designed and implemented for Gram Rozgar Sahayak or Field Assistant. 9. Ensuring Accountability through Performance Management System. Once recruited often the question of accountability of contract staff is raised. WG recommends a performance management system with 360 degree evaluation system to be done in the field situations and linking salary and non monetary awards to performance grade. It has been done successfully by a livelihoods project in Tamil Nadu that works in 15 districts (VKP). 10. Human Resource Policy for Contract Staff.
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11. Organizational Structure for Training needs to be set up to meet the needs arising out of MGNREGA implementation. Secondly CSOs could play a critical role here, since many have done a very good work across the country in enabling wage seekers and village communities to access their entitlements under MGNREGA and since CSOs have also had a long history of mobilization, capacity building and support to village communities. Accordingly, WG makes the following recommendations: a. At the national level, a National MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (NMTSO) needs to be created to anchor the entire training effort for MGNREGA. It would draw upon the best resources across the country and pool them to create hubs in each state and district of the country. In terms of roles, it will (a) act as a coordinating and anchoring agency between different state level resource centres; (b) help to define and refine training policy at both state and national levels and make training needs assessments; (c) act as a clearing house for training material and resources and as a nodal centre actively involved in development and dissemination of training material, methods and resources; and (d) identify and mobilize institutions which can play the role of training institutions for MGNREGA across the country. More details are available in the main text. b. At the state level, a State MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (SMTSO) needs to be set up to oversee the training functions throughout the state. This should actually be a Consortium of carefully selected CSOs, available professional and technical institutions with practical experience of planning, who will act as Anchor Organizations (AOs), anchoring the training effort at the state level and creating master trainers and master trainer organizations at the district level. The purpose of this state level consortium will be to create District MGNREGA Training and Support Organizations (DMTSO) which are master trainer and support organizations at the district level for the purposes of MGNREGA planning, implementation and mobilization for entitlements. c. At the district level, there is need to set up a District MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (DMTSO). This is a master trainer organization which imparts training to block and sub-block implementation teams. The DMTSO may be formed by the state 8
government by inducting full-time dedicated resource persons who will act as master trainers for MGNREGA. The DMTSO will also provide support to Project Implementation Agencies under MGNREGA. These would be trained by Anchor Organisations, where necessary. 12. In terms of curriculum for field staff training, a 20-day Foundation Course may be visualized, followed by another 20-day follow-up module. Otherwise a more rigorous 30-day Foundation Course may be followed up by a 20-day refresher module. An evaluation of the performance of the trainees is a must. This could take the form of a course-end examination as well as concurrent review of trainees on their attitude, skills and behaviour. Both could lead to course-end grades. Certificates clearly stating that the team members have been trained to act as Master Trainers at the district level will be awarded by the SMTSO, mentioning the course-end grades attained, in order to maintain quality of trainers and in the interest of transparency. 13. Costs and collaboration with RUDSETI. It is estimated that provisioning for such a training structure down the line will come to less than 1% of the MGNREGA budget. This cost is expected to decline after the initial years since the more critical handholding requirements will be in the first and second years. It is recommended therefore that the Operational Guidelines be suitably modified to cater for such expenditure. Where CSOs are inducted for the task of training DMTSOs or play the role of DMTSOs, their training and staff expenses should also be taken care of. Possibilities of convergence with RUDSETI type institutions should be explored in terms of infrastructure and human resources for training. 14. There are quality issues in selection of CSOs and the main text gives detailed process and criteria so that genuine, reputed ones are only selected. 15. Harnessing IT systems to monitor and to redress grievances. IT system could (a) speedily process data, (b) enable availability of data nearly concurrently with its online updation/entry through networks, and (c) break down artificial barriers of geography, boundaries etc. to flow of information (present in paper systems). These are key to engendering transparency and together make for contributions in governance. Assuming better connectivity backbones and hardware, WG recommends an Online Real Time Work Demand System where demand could be generated on Mobile Phone by a potential job seeker. Further, if MGNREGA correspondents with a handlheld or a computer are available even within the perimeter of the cluster or the block, 9
the application can be made online. WG recommends Online Real Time Grievance Redressal on similar lines. 16. Real Time Online Muster Rolls, Work Attendance and Measurements. A system can be visualized whereby handhelds are issued to field workers under MGNREGA, and muster rolls are directly updated online to the statelevel servers by biometric identification of the workers who are present on site. Such an immediate updation will go a long way in aiding concurrent monitoring. In fact, the paper muster roll can be a print out of the online muster. Fitted with GPS and webcam facilities, the system should further aid in verification of the work being done on the site at which is reportedly being done. It seems that this has also already been piloted in different states by the MoRD. The results of this pilot should be made public and appropriate policies framed on the feedback 17. Biometrics and UID-Enabled IT Application Layer for MGNREGA thus integrating with UID. Since UID is going to be the identity proving mechanism in the not-too-distant future, its relationship with any application layer in the social sector becomes critical and synergistic. Critical because (1) any nonUID based authentication architecture potentially faces the problem of nonconformance and redundancy in the not-too-distant future; and (2) if the MGNREGA IT architecture is not sufficiently prepared for the backend authentication proposed by the UID, there will be problems. Synergistic because the sort of connectivity backbone that is required to make UID authentication foolproof will also benefit MGNREGA. 18. It is this Working Group's recommendation that a coordination mechanism between MGNREGA and UID is pro-actively worked out by MoRD. It is on the basis of this understanding that a clear IT plan to be rolled out should be made so that MGNREGA has strategically positioned itself to maximize the wage-seeker's benefits. 19. We propose using Banking Correspondent model for enhancing capacity for delivery of wage payments. Despite its various problems, everyone (including the villagers themselves) is agreed that payment through bank transfers is a good thing and must stay. Its basic premises of separating those in-charge of work execution from those in-charge of payments and doing away with the handling of cash is fundamentally sound. In each village, Banks place a Customer Service Provider (CSP) identified by the banker equipped with a smart card reader networked to the bank server. Each beneficiary is 10
given a bank account after biometric authentication by the bank. All disbursements are credited electronically to the accounts of the beneficiaries. Banks arrange cash to the CSP using a Business Correspondent (BC). The MIS showing disbursement is available online. A printer may give out details of the transaction as a paper record. 20. ICT/GIS Enabled Asset Management System( AMS). Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group recommends setting up ICT/GIS enabled Assets Management System for MGNREGA. A Public –Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. The district administration with the help of ICT enabled Bharat Nirman ‘Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras ‘(RGSKs) at the panchayat and block levels would uplink the AMS to NREGA division of MoRD. 21. Strengthening Policy Evaluation and Research Systems (PERS) For MGNREGA. As the implementation of MGNREGA has entered its fifth year in a row, the Working Group recommends setting up PERS as a continuous policy evaluation and research think tank for enhancing the capacity of MoRD in its effective and efficient implementation of NREGA by a. developing innovative participatory approaches and syncretic evidence based methodologies for impact analysis, b. anticipating policy research needs of key stakeholders and responding to specific policy analysis requests in the areas of innovation, convergence and capacity building on all current and emerging issues in MGNREGA, c. functioning as a forum and clearinghouse for the sharing of information as well as the dissemination of best practices through workshops, seminars, publication of journals, reports, bulletins, briefs and other literature, and d. helping create an environment for imparting expertise to people interested in rigorous program evaluation and training to policy makers/implementers on how to conduct randomized and qualitative evaluations in social policies.
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22. With a rigorous adherence to objectives of MGNREGA especially articulating voices of poor in the realm of livelihood security , PERS would help create a robust, dynamic and self-evolving knowledge-space that is authoritative, objective, nonpartisan and transparent in generic terms of monitoring and evaluation as mentioned in the Section 11 of the Act. Further, PERS is intended to breakdown the silos in social science research and deepen the sphere of participatory and informed dialogue between policy makers and civil society. For this, in collaboration with multilateral organizations and private sector, PERS should set up Chairs in the universities, social science institutes, IITs/IIMs for carrying out teaching, research and advocacy in areas of development, innovation and sustainable livelihood. 23. Why PERS? A couple of reasons behind suggesting PERS are: (i) there is nothing in terms of independent policy research and evaluation support at the central or state level. PIN (Professional Institutional Network) in the MGNREGA cell of MoRD is generally bureaucratically driven and often operates on the principles of ex-post-facto analysis of the implementation of MGRNEGA. the impact of PIN studies on course correction, innovation and policy change is rather limited as most policies changes in MGNREGA have been carried out without any research and analysis support of PIN; (ii) Based on the field visit, interaction and meeting with key officials at NIAR (LABSNA) the Working Group on 28 April 2010 does not think that NIAR is equipped with enough in-house resources, skills, aptitudes and backed by quality researchers including dedicated professionals to justify the role of “ National Resource Center” for MGNREGA. In short, members of Working Group recommend that the NIAR needs to focus more seriously on research for teaching and training of career civil servants rather than undertaking Livelihood based development research. 24. Location of PERS: It should ideally be located in the proposed branch of NIRD in Jaipur (Rajasthan). 25. Structure of PERS: PERS will be composed of three units (or sections); namely “Independent Evaluation or Impact Assessment Unit’ that will focus on various implementing aspects including impact analysis and appraisal of MGNREGA. Second, ‘Research and Analysis Unit’ will be a new avatar of current PIN (Professional Institutional Network) for commissioning, guiding, and coordinating studies from a network of universities, social science institutes, and civil society organizations for fostering public-private 12
partnership in the monitoring and evaluation of MGNREGA. Third unit will be “ Publication &Communication Unit”. This will be primarily responsible for publishing Policy Briefs, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Working Papers, documentaries, short films etc. for effective and transparent dissemination of information and setting the stage for informed dialogue between people and the government about the implementation of MGNREGA. 26. Capacity Building Reforms for Strengthening Panchayati Raj. Some specific recommendations are I) Converting PRIs into Mission Mode: “Panchayat Empowerment & Accountability Incentive Scheme” of MoPR ( Ministry of Panchyati Raj) may be made an integral part of the Mission; (ii) Following Maharashtra Experience, state governments need to make four meetings of Gram Sabha as mandatory for enhancing the implementation of MGNREGA. Necessary amendments in the Constitution may be made in this regard; (iii) Borrowing from Kerala experience, a campaign mode of decentralization must accompany the implementation of MGRNEGA in various states. Either transfer cadre (Kerala model) or create a new cadre for PRI( Bihar model): Learning from Kerala experience, the Working Group suggests that even while the State Government is the staff-creating and cadre-controlling authority, PRIs need to have full freedom in assigning work, supervising its execution, reviewing performance and even imposing minor punishments, if required. 27. For urgent need of ‘communitization of capacity building’, MoRD needs to declare people based rural development centres in Ralegaon Siddhi, MKKS in Vijaypura, SPS (MP), Vilasrao Salunkhe (Pani-baba)’s experiments in Purandhar block in Pune, Subhas Palekar’s Zero budget agriculture in Amaravati and various similar innovative experiments across the country as “National Centres for excellence for Community Learning’ for imparting training in rural development. An expert group needs to be set up to identify similar rural development initiatives across the country. 28. Urgent reforms are necessary for NIRD and SIRDs; the working group welcomes the initiative of MoRD to setup an Expert Group to consider the feasibility of reforms for NIRD. In collaboration with state governments, SIRDs also need to be completely revamped and reformed for providing support to MGNREGA. The apathy of SIRDs towards MGNREGA can be gauzed from the fact that not a single SIRD reported or responded to the queries of
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Working Group wrt capacity building. (refer to visits of Working Group in annexure) 29. Capacity Building Recommendations for North East. To overcome capacity deficiency in the north eastern states, we suggest strengthening, streamlining and mainstreaming the faculty strength, infrastructure and training modules respectively of NIRD-NERC, Guwahati and all the SIRDs in the region. Large states like Arunachal Pradesh should open more extension centers of SIRDs in three different regions of the state. We also suggest better networking of these SIRDs with their extension centers and with NIRD Guwahati through video conferencing etc. Power cut is a problem in interior regions of North East. These remotely located power deficient SIRDs and their extension centers must be equipped with alternative sources of power like solar power and DG Sets. The expenditure undertaken on this head can be met from the administrative cost of the rural developmental programmes including MGNREGA. Following steps need to be taken for North East; 30. (a)Iimportant stakeholders of the programme particularly the programme officers (BDOs) be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and MGNREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how NREGA is an intervention in development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through NREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development in the context of the North East. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up NREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development and participation in the region. 31. (b)The SHG movement is slowly but steadily gaining ground in North East. Hence we suggest better coordination between SGSY and NREGA and explore the SHG route of mobilising workers in NREGA. 32. (c)Social Audit. Once the acceptability of social audit been established, initially this exercise can be undertaken by reputed organisations like MKSS and afterwards can be passed on to regional organisations of credibility, import and expertise. 14
33. (d)Financial Inclusion. Financial inclusion is limited because of thin spread of banks/post offices. The topography and cultural practices of people also contribute to it. To overcome the topographical compulsions, we suggest the introduction of bike-cum-barefoot satellite banking system by the postal department/banks. The postal department is undertaking innovative expansion in its activities. We find that in states like Meghalaya home delivery of letters/documents are not undertaken in remote rural areas. This is the right time that a model like bike-cum- barefoot satellite banking (with biometric cards) with postal article delivery can be combined by the postal department and the job can be undertaken by the modern postman. 34. (e)Role of SIRDs in Awareness Generation. SIRDs of respective states, can be given a project to identify the major languages of their states, collaborate with the local linguistic departments of respective universities and can get efficient translation done for dissemination of MGNREGA material. 35. (f)To overcome the problem of shortage of technical assistants, in addition to having a HR policy in place in MGNREGA and increasing remuneration associated with this post, the authorities can recruit local youths with class XII pass certificates and train them for two/three months by the government engineers of the district/block/divisions and then employ them for measurement and technical supervision of NREGA works. 36. (g)Ombudsmen. Many of the NER States except Assam and Tripura, do not find enough candidates for the position of Ombudsman. Where ever, they are available, the list is heavy with retired bureaucrats only. To overcome this problem, to make the selection inclusive and to strengthen this institution, the required 20 years experience may be reduced to 15 years so that we get candidates from the civil society, as in many states civil society is of recent origin including separation of judiciary from executive. (h)Helpline. No state in the region has a dedicated MGNREGA 24*7 help line. This should be immediately taken up and activated.
PS: The Working Group notes with some concern that a parallel ‘working group’ has also been formed by MoRD on 11 March 2010 to recommend ‘appropriate measures for the technical and administrative strengthening of the States and their implementing agencies’. (Ref; No.J-11011/15/2007-NREGA). Therefore, members of Working Group wonder as to how MoRD would like to reconcile the 15
recommendations of Working Group on “Capacity Building” with those of Working Group on’ technical and administrative strengthening” as the task of capacity building indeed involves suggesting measures for the technical and administrative strengthening of the States and their implementing agencies’. We would have appreciated if MoRD could have shared its own perspective on what it considers “capacity building” before venturing into setting up another group.1
1
The report has been written by unofficial members of the working group; official members provided logistic, coordination and research support as and when required. Since the official members were busy with multiple governmental tasks and not often available for consultation, discussion and field visits, the division of labour worked optimally and effectively.
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CHAPTER – I INTRODUCTION What is Capacity Building? Based on discussions with various stakeholders, field visits in various states and learning from theories of neo-institutionalists,( Olson& March,1997; Steinmo, 2001), the Working Group proposes to define capacity building not as ordinary shortage of staff and lack of training facilities but as the dynamic process of developing, strengthening and institutionalizing the ‘rules of game’, norms, standard operating procedures, skills, abilities, and resources that organizations, communities and individuals need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fastchanging world of policy implementation. (Ann Philbin, 1996). Capacity building, broadly speaking, has two major aspects; for organizations, it relates to whole gamut of governance, administration (including human resources, financial management, and legal matters), business processes, program development, evaluation, and policy changes for innovation. For individuals, capacity building refers to excellence in individual performance, leadership development, socializing managerial values, technical skills, training opportunities, organizing abilities, and other areas of personal and professional development that includes sensitivity to values of equity, participation and inclusion. Thus, individual empowerment eventually results in the ‘communitization of capacities’ especially marginalized and socially excluded groups in the society. In other words, capacity building is not a stand-alone, top-down strengthening of managerial systems and imparting technical know-how to implementers but in reality a ‘polycentric’ governance (ala Vincent Ostrom) that covers the whole range of implementation, accountability, monitoring, and evaluation of policy at multiple levels including systems and community at the grassroots. Capacity Building for MGNREGA: Diagnosis of issues and challenges MGNREGA is certainly the largest and most innovative flagship program of the Central Government of India in terms of its outlay, coverage, expected outcomes and the potential to change the face of rural India. With a cumulative employment generation figure of 578.65 crore person-days, and a budgetary allocation of Rs.40,100 crores for 2010-11, MGNREGA promises the largest employment guarantee in the world. Its current budgetary allocation stands at Rs.40,100 crores. As the truly comprehensive Operational Guidelines (2008) backing MGNREGA clearly enunciate, the intention behind the legislation goes well beyond the narrow goal of providing relief employment or unemployment doles. It is perhaps worthwhile to remind ourselves of the goals of MGNREGA as set out in these guidelines in order to define the framework within which the idea of capacity building
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for it needs to be looked at: “ a. Strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups by providing a fall-back employment source, when other employment alternatives are scarce or inadequate b. Growth engine for sustainable development of an agricultural economy. Through the process of providing employment of works that address causes of chronic poverty such as drought, deforestation and soil erosion, the Act seeks to strengthen the natural resource base of rural livelihood and create durable assets in rural areas. c. Empowerment of rural poor through the processes of a rights-based law d. New ways of doing business, as a model of governance reform anchored on the principles of transparency and grass-root democracy” [MoRD, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.2; emphasis added] Backed by a constitutional right, it is MGNREGA's mandate of addressing chronic causes of poverty, redressing imbalances and deficiencies in the natural resource base, empowerment of the poor and governance reform that makes it stand apart from all social sector initiatives hitherto attempted. Taken together, a fulfilment of these mandates may well translate into reality the potential of MGNREGA. The above mandate points to the inherent challenges and the tremendous opportunities present in MGNREGA. If the opportunities are seized, the goal can be realized. However, in order to seize these opportunities, several challenges have to be overcome. This becomes all the more critical given the yet unfinished agenda of grassroots devolution and decentralization first embarked upon nearly two decades ago with the constitutional 73rd Amendment, followed by its extension to scheduled areas in 1996, widely heralded as the dawn of a new era in the history of India and also as the largest decentralization project in the world. The report of this Working Group seeks to deal with some of the major challenges which, despite the impressive progress registered by MGNREGA in the initial years, need to be addressed, if the true potential of MGNREGA is to be realized. It is true that MGNREGA is anchored in the decentralized administration of PRIs, (sections 15,16,17 of the Act), but the role of career civil servants especially District Collectors better known as District Program Coordinators (DPC), Program Officers, officials from Line departments and various support staff at the grassroots continues to be critical to the success of MGNREGA. Given the unique rights perspective of
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MGNREGA, conventional models of public administration and management have become largely irrelevant. Implementing MGRFNEAG provides us rare opportunity for social re-engineering of citizen-centric administration and innovating the participative and decentralized public service delivery (Ref; “Unlocking Human Capital”, Second Administrative Reforms Commission). Although a multi-tier structure of administrative and institutional arrangements for implementation and monitoring with specified roles and responsibilities have been set up, ground level reports suggest that various institutional structures are not working in tandem and District Collectors (DPC) and Program Officers are still struggling with conflicting demands of vertical and horizontal coordination across departments and different tiers of government especially Panchayati Raj in the implementation of MGNREGA. For instance, Maharashtra has not suffered not only from lack of social mobilization of agricultural laborers and work site management issues but also from the usual bureaucratic turf wars and coordination conflicts between Chief Executive Officers of Zila Parishad and Collectors. In contrast, Bihar, Chhattisgarh etc continue to suffer from ‘deficits’ of poorly crafted and inadequately managed administrative and management systems at all levels. The innovation of a separate ‘MGNREGA cell’ has not yet produced desired outcomes as state governments continue to grapple with shortage of dedicated support staff at critical stages of planning, implementation and monitoring. ( Refer to Appendix on Chhattisgarh). Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks not only note shortage of dedicated personnel, poor training facilities and lack of community participation, but also find evidence of growing dissatisfaction of the staff especially those ‘contract staff’ with regard to poor working conditions and arbitrary contract appointment policies of various state governments. Except AP, no state government has yet formulated a clearly articulated Human Resource Development policy. Therefore, the open protest marches and rallies of MGNREGA support staff in states like Bihar and Maharashtra, remind us about the looming crisis in MGRNEGA. Apart from ‘moral hazards and distorted incentives’, MGNREGA also suffers from ‘path dependencies’ of top-down bureaucratic mode of governance at various levels of implementation in the states. This not only results in known administrative failures such as underutilizations of funds (Jharkhand failed to spend Rs. 1000 crore in 20089), poor-project completion( total number of works taken up under the scheme from February 2006 to September 2009 is over 79 lakh but the number of works completed is less than 31 lakh, about 39%, according to a study of Planning Commission ) but also failed experiments of social mobilization such as “Goan Sathi” in Orissa and the toying of idea of providing ‘uniform’ for mates and Rojzar Sevaks in Jharkhand, a state battling against ‘uniformed and un-uniformed’ Maoist rebels! Therefore, capacity building from a uniquely rights perspective and communitization of governance has indeed emerged a major critical pillar to the success of MGNREGA; much hyped ‘convergence’ has suffered largely because of lack of innovative administrative and management systems at district and block levels. In short, the implementation of MGNREGA suffers as much from the socalled capture by “particular interests” or as from the lack of institutional and managerial capabilities to perform at multiple levels. Therefore, the so-called crisis of ‘capacity building’ has, in part, been caused by “demand over load” and in part caused by “supply- side -distortions’ due to the complexity of multilevel implementation from the Center to Gram Sabha. This has further been aggravated by ‘astronomical numbers of stakeholders” that demand not
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only a robust structure of Human resources but also a well defined strategy to develop the capabilities of these stakeholders to perform the assigned tasks efficiently and efficiently. According to a note submitted to the Working Group by NIRD, the tentative estimate of the number of stakeholders in the implementation (other than the millions of the worker households) is more than seven millions. And a tentative training estimate informs that the current coverage is about 1.5 to 2.0 millions ( Ref to Annexure on NIRD note to the working group dated 24 June 2010). A note by Ministry of Panchyati Raj on the Capacity Building for PRIs also comments that “the 28.5 lakh elected representatives including Chairmen (by whatever name called like Sarpanch, Pradhans, Mukhiyas, Adhyaksh or Sabhadhipati) and eight lakh key officials who deal with or work under the Panchayats, are all poorly trained.”( refer to Annexure XVI). In this the role of SIRDs and NIRD become crucial. However, considering the lack of cutting-edge research environment that NIRD suffers from and the comatose in which SIRDs have entered into, it is almost impossible to think that training needs of key Officials/Staff of MGNRGEA and PRIs functionaries could be undertaken without an innovative “government-civil society’ partnership.
Though mandated under section 18 of the Act and harshly reminded by CAG report (2008) and various civil society reports about the shortage of key staff and distortions in the delivery systems, state governments have been rather tardy or wilfully negligent in laying down requisite human resources structures in place, however every state government loves the ‘quick bite’ of so-called “untied NREGS funds’ from the Center! Other than Rajasthan, AP and Kerala, most state governments have been implementing MGNREGA with skeleton support staff from line departments without any professional and moblizational support from civil society, which is a critical stakeholder in ensuring the integrity of the implementation of MGNREGA. For example, Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh is one of the top ten districts in terms of high expenditure but the state of Madhya Pradesh began appointing dedicated Program Officers (POs) only in 2009. North East is also an instructive case where much of the work is being implemented without any community participation and adequate management systems. Except Tripura and Sikkim, states in the North East have taken up implementation in a ‘food for work mode’ or ‘BRGF format’( refer to annexure on North East). Although they need specific strategies for planning and implementation, regions like Ladakh and Andaman Nicobars do not exist on the radar of MGNREGA. In this scenario country wide, much has been expected from over-burdened, fatigued and politically challenged District Collectors and Program Officers who multitask much beyond their human and managerial capacities. Notorious Line departments have increasingly become life-line of MGNREGA. And also much faith has been placed in the efficacy of PRIs which often work without any infrastructure and human resource support systems. In other words, MGNREGA requires broad based re-engineering in the processes of the administrative systems, and management reforms especially in areas of human resources coupled with innovative support systems in a Public-Private partnership mode with robust accountability mechanisms. It is this challenge of addressing ‘capacity building” at multilevel, the Working Group takes up in the following chapters of the report; each chapter is designed in a separate ‘diagnostic and problem solving’ format.
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Capacities, Capabilities and Support Systems In order to realize the goals that MGNREGA has set out for itself, there need to be first and foremost human capacities. The capabilities of these human capacities need to be developed so that they are able to undertake the responsibility mandated to them. Human capacities and capabilities further need to be backed by proper supporting institutions, which act as decision support systems, assisting in concurrent monitoring of outcomes and better management of the schemes initiated under MGNREGA. It is this Working Group's considered view that the key to maximizing the gains from MGNREGA implementation and the key to effective democratic devolution and decentralization is the creation and enhancement of capacities available with the PRIs at all levels, The institutional framework which defines the interactions of these human capacities has to be designed in order that the challenges of accountability and autonomous spaces are both met. Such a framework must also recognize that better governance is not merely about increased “efficiency” (which is no doubt important) in the sense of cost or time efficiency but has to be seen as the ability to respond with concrete outcomes, while at the same time following due process, transparency and regularity. Further, the organization (both in the sense of a body carrying out a task and the underlying structure, allocation of responsibilities and the interconnections between the various components) delivering MGNREGA to the people of this country needs to be characterized by a common sense of purpose and cohesiveness, inter-connectedness, sharing and flow of needed expertise and insights, with an ability to work across walls rather than in silos. The subject of this report therefore, deals with: 1. Capacities, i.e., personnel required at different levels to carry out the tasks which go towards fulfilling the goals above 2. Capabilities of these personnel to carry out the tasks mandated 3. the support systems at national, state and district level for the capacities and capabilities to be fully realized Since the last of these is the most challenging and in this Working Group's view, has the maximum bearing on the first two, this report will first look at this aspect and then the other.
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CHAPTER II Human Resource Development Reforms Issues related to Human Resources 1.
2.
In laying out the organisational structure and staffing and specifying the administrative expenditure, the Government of India has followed a tradition. It relied on district administration especially the office of the district collector to deliver the goods. This model has had relative success, for example, in implementation of watershed program. Further, PRIs are implementation partners so the scheme assumed they had this local self government structure too to deliver. Hence it rightly assumed that a lean staffed organisational structure would suffice when it specified 6 percent as administrative expenditure. However, the scheme has faced several difficulties on account of staffing in general and employing professionals at all levels to deliver the program in specific. ◦ Lack of Dedicated Pro-active Teams at the Cutting Edge. Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks note a severe shortage of dedicated personnel and poor training facilities, affecting community mobilisation. Barring a couple of states such as AP and Rajasthan, the implementation structure stops at the block level, relying as it does on Panchayats whose implementation capacities vary widely across states and districts. Thus often the system is in reactive and fire fighting mode rather than in a pro-active mode with adequate capacities to plan ahead and to implement these plans well. ◦ Ad Hoc Appointments without proper recruitment and selection strategies and High Turnover. By allocating a very low administrative expenditure, unwittingly the government incentivised ad hoc appointments of low quality staff in large numbers, with every RD secretary and district collector somehow managing with whoever s/he could get in the local job market. Indian job market has become open and nationalized and movement of all categories of human resources, from professionals to unskilled workers, across states to job intensive areas is a common phenomenon. It is also clear that with private sector opening up, the salary expectations are higher2. Problems commonly found in state NREGA systems are the following: (a) compensation structure indicating ad hoc nature of employment such as lump sum monthly payment; (b) much of the responsibility to hire staff is left to the DPC without specifying “how” or to the Mukhia/Sarpanch; and (c) high turnover.
Existing Capacities – An Analysis 3.
2
Given that the MGNREGA made a paradigm shift from conventional “relief” or wage employment generation programs by making a constitutional guarantee to wage seekers, the organizational governance and management (delivery) structure must be in a state of high preparedness and must have the internal capacity and systems, so as to timely and adequately respond to the demand as and when it arises.
It is amply demonstrated in many of the government projects having to raise their salaries constantly in order to retain older staff and to attract higher quality staff, and is also evident in actions of certain states within NREGA too and what is likely to be prescribed by NRLM.
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5.
6.
7.
Preparedness of the institutional structure or lack of it remains a huge concern, however. This is primarily a function of weakness in planning function and in turn that depends on the quality of staff, team composition, and their capacity and willingness to work for the poor and at the grassroots, round the year. Working Group’s observation is that the human resources placed at the disposal of the Gram Panchayat (GP) are by and large inadequate and widely varying. The systems of recruitment, appointment, remuneration, termination and terms of service, where on contract are also either absent, or have not been able to sustain themselves after the initial round (example Bihar). By making GPs the major implementation partner and assigning critical roles to PRIs at the intermediate and district levels, backed by a direct transfer of finances to districts, MGNREGA has moved ahead in terms of taking care of two of the bottlenecks in the way of effective democratic decentralization and devolution. However, in the absence of adequate functionaries at the GP level and above, the core mandate of MGNREGA is suffering. Adequate human resources with systems for their placement are therefore urgently needed. An assessment of existing capacities made by the Working Group through direct field observations and study of reviews of MGNREGA implementation has led to the conclusion that the human resources placed at the disposal of the Gram Panchayat (GP) are by and large inadequate and widely varying. The systems of recruitment, appointment, remuneration, termination and terms of service, where on contract are also either absent, or have not been able to sustain themselves after the initial round (example Bihar). When one does a SWOT analysis of the MGNREGA institutional structure, one finds that the delivery of the employment guarantee has faltered, due to weaknesses in either in the state apparatus, or in PRIs, or there is a slack in people’s mobilization to demand (due to lack of people’s movement or people’s organization at the grassroots). Supply driven systems seem to be strong in a few states (AP, TN, Rajasthan and MP) and they haven’t depended on or waited for the demand to emerge. In cases where PRIs are strong (WB, Kerala) and a supporting state government apparatus exists, again the performance is better. In the rest of the states, neither of the three is strong, and the performance has suffered. The same formulation seems to apply in tribal areas in central Indian belt across from the west to east. Where does the capacity exist within the government system or outside? All states seem to be recruiting staff from the market to build institutional capacity for NREGA implementation, although leadership and certain senior level engineering and accounts positions are being filled by staff on deputation. A close examination of organograms of AP, MP and Rajasthan reveals that management teams at all levels, namely, the state, district and block level, are being set up with contractual staff. Contractual recruitment from market under NRHM further proves that this is now a widespread phenomenon across sectors. If this is so, why should there not be a proper policy and proper process for recruitment and selection for this category of staff?
Recommendations 8.
Strengthen Demand by Enlisting People’s Institutions Such as SHGs and Federations. Demand strengthening processes and systems must be put in place in this phase of MGNREGA. The Working group recommends pro-action regarding the processes enabling community mobilization and awareness raising regarding their rights that irrespective of the actors. As a first measure, the government must recognize the role of formations such as SHGs and producer groups comprising of BPL families, and their aggregations at the village level and above, in helping the poor assert their rights and in helping them bargain a better deal from the PRIs in the gram sabhas as well as the government, and often with banks and market forces too. Given that the SHG movement is still weak in many parts of the north and tribal India, the government must
24 give it further momentum. It will synergise the efforts that now NRLM is putting in at a vast scale. MGNREGA could then hope to have more assertive poor in Gram Sabha, and dictate their priorities in work selection. 9.
Decentralise Implementation to Sub-Block Level - Form Gram Vikas Sankuls (Village Development Clusters) as Planning and Implementation Units: Based on experiences across several livelihoods projects like SERP AP and Jeevika, Bihar, it is evident that a dedicated governance and management structure is unavoidable to produce the results at scale and across districts.
10. Size of a Village Development Cluster. On an average there are about 90 to 100 villages per block in India. We may divide the block into 3 parts, each to be called the Village Development Cluster (Gram Vikas Sankul, GVS) comprising 30 to 35 villages each or about 15 GPs (or one-third of the block). This middle tier GVS will be the cutting edge level of MGNREGA implementation between the GP and the Intermediate Panchayat. Such a layer will be co-terminus with optimum deployment of personnel, and will ensure: (i) proper planning; (ii) greater cohesion and coordination between GPs and within project teams; (iii) time-bound sanctions and releases, smoother functioning, through a reduction in the critical distance between GP and MGNREGA implementation hub; (iv) timely measurements and valuations of work; and (v) powerful social mobilization and social audit. Apart from increasing human resource allocation at the cutting edge of implementation, the Gram Vikas Sankul also ensures a level of efficiency of use of such resources since they are collectively used by several GPs. 11. While preparing its report, this Working Group also is in receipt of the recommendations of the Working Group on Planning and Execution (P&E) and is happy to note that there is convergence in recommendations on this aspect. It is also in agreement with the recommendation of the Working Group (P&E) tat the delineation of this cluster or GVS needs to be done on the principle of area and distance rather than administrative boundaries and accepts the recommendation of setting the delineation limit at about a population size of 40,000. In terms of national averages, this coincides with roughly onethird of the block. This Working Group also notes that this is roughly the area on which the cutting edge of NRLM implementation is also proposed to rest. This gives grounds for convergence and pooling of human resources at the disposal of PRIs. 12. Place a full time dedicated NREGA Program Facilitation Team (PFT) at GVS. A very strong fulltime spearhead team is needed at the sub-block level, which almost on a daily basis, can easily reach out to, mobilize and empower the poor, wage seekers to make demands on the system. 13. Roles of a PFT: Such a dedicated PFT will prepare an annual micro-plan for each gram panchayat each year resulting in shelf of works and annual budget estimates (material and labour budget both). The PFT will train Gram Panchayat representatives and functionaries and also village-level workers, and work with them on all aspects such as implementation, asset verification, measurement and payment, and monitoring and evaluation, MIS maintenance, and social audit. WG makes a strong recommendation of ensuring full involvement of women self help groups in micro-planning, monitoring, as well as in social audit exercises. 14. PFT Composition. Exact composition, educational qualifications and experience, and compensation structure is to be worked out separately. Broadly speaking a three member team headed by some one who has at least three years experience in rural development or by someone with a MSW or Post graduate degree in Development Studies or Rural Management with at least two years’ experience. Other two members could be fresh post graduates, although they too preferably should have a year’s
25 experience (since often large number of experienced professionals is not available). PFT will reach to a population about a third of a block, or 30 to 35 villages, and in terms of geographical area a maximum of 15,000 hectare. This is a large enough area to employ and distribute the cost of hiring quality staff. Thus there would be three NSTs in a block each led by a PFT team leader and reporting to the Program Officer at the block level. At the GP level, the PFT is assisted by Gram Rozgar Sahayaks. 15. Costs @5 percent of total work value. The administrative support budget for a PFT would be Rs. 810,000 per year (Rs. 20,000 per month for PFT team leader, and Rs. 15,000 per month each for the two members, plus 30% for travel and office overheads). NST will have to have carried out NREGA works worth 1.6 crore rupees in a year, to earn this @5 per cent administration cost. This doesn’t seem too difficult. 16. Specific observations related to Field Assistant (FA) or Gram Rozgar Sevak( AP Model). Being the lynchpin of MGNREGA at the GP level, active and accountable GRSs can make a major difference. Their quality, motivation and skills need to be developed and sustained through careful selection, training, technical support, incentives and clear accountability. Many irregularities spring from this level since he/she is the muster registering agency. There is much political interference in identifying this person. In order to insulate this institution from such pressures, it is recommended that the FA/GRS is automatically appointed by a computer programme that selects the literate person who has worked the highest number of days in the village. Such a person is trained in programme implementation. 17. Specific Observations related to Mate system. The active job seekers are being organised into groups under a ‘mate’ who is an educated worker. He/she helps in taking the muster and in organising work at the work site. Mates are being trained in various aspects of programme implementation for which a separate organization has been created. Kudamshree model of Kerala offers an innovative perspective on mobilizing women as ‘mates’. Backed by automation ,AP model of identifying Mate from the active workers could be upscaleed across the country.
Recruitment and Selection Process for Professionals 18. AP and MP experience in NREGA and that of Jeevika in Bihar and VKP in Tamil Nadu shows that: • the system of recruitment and selection of professionals must be an objective, transparent and systematic exercise, not just for management cadre at the state and district level (in AP, even mate selection is done scientifically); • Methodology must eliminate biases in selection, especially over-reliance on interviews; • Such recruitments could be outsourced to credible agencies, backed by administrative and political support. The involvement of SRIJAN and SIDS3 in the recruitment process for the Jeevika project of the Government of Bihar is an illustration of such outsourcing. The project is being executed by an autonomous agency, the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLP) which also outsourced the recruitment process. 3
Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (Srijan) is an NGO working on water and agriculture related issues in several states of India. Srijan Infratech and Development Services (SIDS) is Srijan's consultancy arm
26 19. Recruitment and Selection Process for MGNREGA must follow the following steps: • Step One. The first key task is to create a profile of the desired candidate with respect to her knowledge, skills, attitude and values (KSAV) with respect to the job profile. Once clearly defined, these attributes help in deciding on the right person, a methodology (tests) would be finalized. • Step Two. Methodology must include Multiple and formal Tests of Selection: This allows for a more wholesome understanding of the person to be selected. It should include tests not just for cognitive ability (Intelligence Quotient tests) but tests for attitudes such as ability to work in teams, empathy with the poor in the villages and achievement motivation. • Step Three. In order to be able to understand and rate candidates, three kinds of tests can be used: (i) Psychometric Tests: These are tests designed to indicate how psychologically comfortable an individual is with the kind of work expected to be taken up in the project. There are various types of psychometric tests which are used depending on what we want to assess in an individual. (ii) Sociometric Tests: These tests are used to indicate an individual’s ability and attitude towards working in peer groups or in a team; (iii) Evaluation Interview: If handled well, this gives an overall view of what makes an individual tick. It also helps determine whether the candidate would ‘fit’ with the role as well as with the organization or not. The interview, like other tools in this methodology, is used not so much as a tool of selection, but as a tool of rejection; (iv) In order to further test the suitability to rural development, the process must also include village immersion at least for fresh graduates who apply for field positions. Each of the tests would have a weight assigned and the final selection arrived at after a total of all scores. Hence weights for interview should never be more than 20% in the overall selection process. • Step Four. Administration of the tests must be outsourced and should be formalized rather than be left to chance and vague. A Selection panel should be formally constituted to oversee the process. The interview panel should consist of experts who had experience of working in similar Projects (rather than only department officials or academicians). Clear, unambiguous and transparent criteria for selection or rejection of candidates should be placed. Having panelists who have been formally trained in the use of Selection techniques: Persons sitting as members of the selection panel should be oriented towards the selection process and techniques of observation/ evaluation for the various tests. It should not be assumed that anybody with general work experience can be a good observer/interviewer. 20. It bears repetition that the success of the initial process led the Government of Bihar to approve a similar process of selection across all levels of Jeevika. Thus, almost 300 staff across all the three levels were recruited for the first phase of implementation. Similarly more than 1200 district and field level staff were recruited in Tamil Nadu. Now Panchayati Raj department has also adopted this process. National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) too has outsourced recruitment and selection in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh for state and district positions. 21. We strongly recommend that a similar system of recruitment and selection is designed and implemented for Gram Rozgar Sahayak or Field Assistant, the lynchpin of MGNREGA at the GP level, since many irregularities spring from this level since he/she is the muster registering agency and there is much political interference in identifying this person. Further, their quality, motivation and skills need to be developed and sustained through careful selection, training, technical support, incentives and clear accountability.
Accountability through Performance Management
27
22. Once recruited often the question of accountability of contract staff is raised. Experience of VKP, Tamil Nadu and that of anti poverty project Gemi Dirya of Sri Lanka indicates that a system of performance management that grades the performance of staff on annual basis and rewards or punishes them by linking it to salary and non monetary awards, and to promotion or termination, can be hugely effective. 23. MGNREGA must introduce a system of performance management with following salient features: 1. Performance assessment is done in the field through village visits and areas to be assessed would include potential wage seekers’ participation, reviewing books maintained, reviewing social audit process; 2. Individual as well as team’s performance must be assessed as per stated Key Performance Indicators; 3. Assessment teams come from the state and other districts and also include village leaders from other villages; 4. Appraisal follows a 360 degree feedback system, with comments from senior, peer and juniors. 5. The System is to be followed for district and block and sub-block teams but also for state teams. 6. The 360 degree appraisal method must build in a system of detailed feedback from the village community and the PRIs at different levels. In particular, the involvement of the panchayats and gram sabhas in planning, decision-making and the emergence of strong grassroots institutional structures should be a key element of the evaluation. 7. The HR system must also work as a coordination mechanism for smoothening out implementation-related issues that may arise between the PFT and the PRIs. For this the HR structure at district and state level must play a pro-active role.
Human Resource Policy for Contract Staff 24. Government must take a long term perspective regarding its HR policy for NREGA. AP NREGA, Bihar’s Jeevika and Tamil Nadu’s VKP experience shows that contract staff would work under well defined rules that include specification of their salary in scales and grades, annual increments, leaves including maternity, transfer norms, travel allowances, cell phone allowance, lap top allowance, grievance redressal, and even exit interviews in case of resignation. Except giving provident fund and security of lifetime permanent employment, the rest of the stuff seems to be what a normal employment would provide for. These agencies also have a well defined compensation structure in a matrix form that allows for increments within each category. They define a promotion policy ensuring career growth. This leads to a sense of job security and eliminates arbitrary decisions on part of the authorities. 25. Working group strongly recommends formulation of a comprehensive HR policy with abovementioned features, especially for contract staff in each state.
Governance 26. Imperative for improving governance of a major program like this is to set up a separate organization registered as a society with a full time CEO who is given the best team recruited through a transparent and competent method, from open market just has been done in many programs even in the education sector (e.g. National Literacy Mission). This must be repeated at the state and district level too.
Culture
28 27. The functioning and implementation of such a structure would be helped by adopting a culture with clear purpose, results orientation, business plan for at least three years, and systems of planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, in place.
CHAPTER III Capacity Building for MGNREGA 3.1 The Challenges and Problems The operational guidelines of MGNREGA clearly state that there is need for setting up a chain of resource centres from the national to the state to the district level [Chapter 13]. While these resource centres will act as technology discovery, development and dissemination centres, the cutting edge in terms of training and capacity building has correctly been envisaged at the district level [Section 13.4.1.e]. It is the working group's view that the capacity building and technical support hub envisaged at the district centre is the need of not only MGNREGA but also all rural development initiatives and social sector delivery schemes. The working group is of the view however, that a strategy needs to be thought of for operationalization of this vision so that high quality capacity building and support hubs are indeed made possible at the district level. The following section hopes to detail such an operationalization vision. This will involve an understanding of what has troubled capacity building efforts in rural development interventions in general and MGNREGA in particular in the country thus far. The capacity building experience of MGNREGA in particular and rural development programmes in general has shown that this is one aspect that has been neglected most. There appear to be serious gaps in terms of training infrastructure, training material, resource-persons to undertake training, syllabi and course content. These were observed in most states during the Working Group's visits. Either there is no training infrastructure at the district and sub-district level in several states, or where such infrastructure exists, trainers of good quality are missing or the capacity building of these trainers itself is a huge gap. There exists variation in the contents, methodology, duration, expected outcome and available physical infrastructure in training programmes of MGNREGA across states in India (if we look at Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, NE States, Bihar, Rajastan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and
29
Maharastra). Although, some of these variations can be explained in terms of different nature of institutions and stakeholders involved, level of social mobilisation and presence of regional specificities; yet a good amount of variation is due to unnecessarily differently designed course contents and delivery mechanisms. In this respect, it is also clear that institutions such as NIRD and SIRDs have not been able to deliver in the last 5 years or so. It is also not clear to this Working Group whether they have the capacities to deliver the kind of training and support required to fulfill the objectives cited in the Operational Guidelines Section 1.2(b) cited above. The Working Group has also gone through the concept note and material available on the website with regard to a joint initiative of the MoRD and UNDP which seeks to build capacities of MGNREGA stakeholders across the board. While the initiative is important, as we have observed in our field visits and interactions with NIAR (Mussoorie), NIRD and SIRD that government training institutions woefully lack the capacity and also orientation to impart training for NREGA. The Working Group suggests that an excessively government –centric approach would not only be inadequate but also counterproductive given the people-centric nature of MGRNEGA and also PRI centred planning and implementation. Therefore, not only voluntary organizations would provide hand-holding support but also efforts need to be made to establish People’ Learning Centres at the block or sub-block levels. It is also observed that the above initiative would benefit by a series of CSO consultations held across the country to seed the concept and invite partnerships. It would also be appropriate to consider CSO partnership in the steering of the project itself by giving space to CSOs in the Empowered Committee overseeing the initiative. There also seems to be a lack of a training plan or strategy at the state and national levels. It is clear that there is a lack of cohesion and shared sense of purpose across the board. This is seriously impacting the quality of outcomes on the ground. In general, the problems that have beset capacity building efforts with respect to rural developments can be seen as arising from the following:
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b) Training institutions has very little practical experience of doing what they are training in and have very little touch with the intricacies of ground-level realities, implementation and social engineering4 c) Training institutions are located at a geographical distance, farm removed from where the actual development intervention is scheduled to take place. d) These institutes are run by personnel who speak a language which is largely incomprehensible to the people and whose attitude is didactic rather than dialogic, and who seem to lack the passion for the work which their training will enable. e) A very serious lacuna has been the absence of any kind of follow-up in the field to ensure that the benefits of training are materialised at the field-level for which it was meant. f) There has been an absence of a recognized system of certification for the training efforts g) Training also tends to become too specific5. Overall, the planning and implementation requirements can become so tightly structured that it discourage imaginative and innovative training methods, sticking to what is “allowed”. h) There seems to be a mismatch between what an institution is capable of delivering and what it is actually expected to deliver. Thus, some of the above mentioned issues could be taken care of by using existing training institutions and infrastructure as a facilitation and networking centres, which could also perhaps cater to the training needs of certain types (such as entitlements of wage seekers, procedures and guidelines) but cannot train implementing teams in the intricacies of plan preparation, execution, conflict resolution, social mobilization and social audit.
4
This was further confirmed by the visit of the Working Group to a few government training and support institutions considered at some point or other by the MoRD to get involved in the capacity building effort around MGNREGA. The personnel had very little clue as to what could be done with village communities, had never interacted much with them and certainly could not be seen as adding value to human resources at the PRI levels.
5
In one field visit, the working group members found that after appointment, the MGNREGA Project Officers and the technical personnel had only been given a two-day orientation on estimation and planning of roads, which they were mechanically applying to the task. In another state, which seemed to have a more structured and better approach to training, the standard interventions of watershed development were being taught to village-level personnel.
31
i) There is also a lack of a certification system whereby teams can be judged to have capability to address the task they are entrusted with. j) Another lacuna relates to the near absence of any kind of role assigned to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in this crucial area. It is quite clear that this is one sphere in which civil society organizations have done well and have the potential to contribute.
3.2 Network of Capacity Building Institutions Given the multi-faceted challenges facing MGNREGA implementation, there is an urgent need to create a proper structure for capacity building at the national, state and district levels. Since several CSOs have done very good work across the country in enabling wage seekers and village communities to access their entitlements under MGNREGA and since CSOs have also had a long history of mobilization, capacity building and support to village communities, capacity building for MGNREGA is one area where CSOs must be invited and mandated to play a role. The proposed structure outlined below will benefit by maximization of CSO participation. There is need to identify at the national level, a network of organizations who can perform the role of creating multiple nuclei of empowerment across the country. It is felt by this Working Group that there needs to be a match between training capabilities of institutions and the constituencies they cater to. Thus for instance, institutions such as NIRD and SIRDs may perhaps be better off catering to the training requirements of government officials such as DPCs, CEOs of Zila Parishads, and Program Officers and so on rather than for implementation teams who are entrusted with the actual field work. In this way these institutions may also find their place in such a national network.
Such institutions have already been listed in the Common Guidelines for Watershed Development of the DoLR. National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI) and its regional centres, Central Research Institute for Dry land Areas (CRIDA), Water Technology Centres (WTCs), Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA),
Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), National Remote
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Sensing Agency (NRSA), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Soil and Land Use Survey of India (SLUSI) are some of the well known national level institutions that could impart capacity building inputs to senior government officers at national/ state/ district levels.
There are also several reputed voluntary organizations/ resource organizations with considerable expertise and experience related to micro-planning and institution building such as: MKSS (Rajasthan), Hind Swaraj Trust (Maharashtra), AKRSP (Gujarat),
MYRADA
(Karnataka),
WOTR
(Maharashtra),
Dhan
Foundation
(Tamilnadu), Development Support Center (Guajarat), AFARM (Maharashtra), WASSAN (Andhra Pradesh), ARAVALI (Rajasthan), PRADAN (Different states), CYSD (Orissa), Seva Mandir (Rajasthan ), Foundation for Ecological Security (different states), Samaj Pragati Sahyog (MP), SRIJAN (Different States), People's Science Institute, Dehradun, (Uttarakhand, hilly areas), BASIX (different states)
At the national level, an apex body for MGNREGA training needs to be created to anchor the entire training effort for MGNREGA. The Working Group is of the view that this is of critical importance. This is especially because the capacity for capacity building cannot be presumed to exist at the level of states6 and districts but may need to be either created or enhanced significantly. Thus, this effort of capacity building needs to draw upon the best resources across the country and to pool them to create hubs in each state and district of the country which service the aims and objectives of MGNREGA and eventually other social sector interventions (Forest Rights Act and National Food Security Act to name just two). This organization will: •
6
act as a coordinating and anchoring agency between different state level resource centres
Some states may have such capacities but a majority do not seem to, despite presence of infrastructure and monetary allocations. Indeed, if the aim of capacity building is to create human resources capable of applying their minds and skills to any situation or problem arising in a village (not just this or that specific issue about which they are taught in training sessions), it is unclear that such a capacity building has even been attempted since independence.
33
•
help to define and refine training policy at both state and national levels and make training needs assessments
•
act as a clearing house for training material and resources and as a nodal centre actively involved in development and dissemination of training material, methods and resources.
•
identify and mobilize institutions which can play the role of training institutions for MGNREGA across the country
•
define training content and syllabi for different stakeholders
•
draw up a national level training plan for different stages of MGNREGA implementation and for different stakeholders, factoring in state level training plans
•
identify and induct capable CSOs with proven track records, professional agencies, technical institutes and other institutions who can play the role of Lead Resource Centres or Anchor Organizations (AOs) for MGNREGA in different states, with the active participation of the state level training and support organizations
•
ensure that training requirements for MGNREGA are actually being fulfilled across the country as per the training plan
•
monitor the quality of training imparted and make specific, germane recommendations for improvement of the same
•
give clear recommendations and set clear deadlines to state governments who are not acting or complying with the training road map to bring them back on track
•
Seek advice from the Central Employment Guarantee Council as the apex body steering the MGNREGA and report to the CEGC on the action taken by it and state governments in furtherance of its recommendations. A Steering Committee of the CEGC may be formed to oversee the functioning of the NMTSO. This committee may also induct representatives from reputed and prominent CSOs to guide and monitor its work.
Such a network of institutions at the national level could train further organizations and district level technical support resource groups (envisaged under the Operational Guidelines) to provide training and support to implementation teams as well village level workers. District Level
34
At the district level there is need to set up a District MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (DMTSO). The idea of such an organization is contained in the Operational Guidelines (Section 13.4: District Technical Agencies). This organization will act as a master trainer organization which imparts training to block and sub-block implementation teams. The DMTSO may be formed by the state government by inducting full-time dedicated resource persons who will act as master trainers for MGNREGA. The DMTSO will also provide support to Project Implementation Agencies under MGNREGA. The recruitment of such resource persons may be undertaken through the same channels as that of the project implementation teams at block and cluster levels. The DMTSO can be a CSO, provided one of high quality, with impeccable credentials and some experience of planning and execution or working on nature-based livelihoods is available. These CSOs will have to be selected through a rigorous screening process. If credible and capable CSOs are available but have limited capacity to operate at the scale of one or two blocks, then the DMTSO responsibilities for these blocks may be entrusted to them, while the responsibilities for the other blocks may be shouldered by the dedicated master trainers and support personnel.
If technical and professional agencies such as Krishi Vigyan Kendras, agricultural colleges or other are available and can support the core staff of the DMTSO in the performance of their tasks, such support should be actively enlisted. The DMTSO team will be trained by the Network of Institutions identified at the national and state level. If the selected DMTSO already has some experience in training and support for micro-planning, a 20-day Foundation Course may be visualized, followed by another 20-day follow-up module. Otherwise a more rigorous 30-day Foundation Course may be followed up by a 20-day refresher module. An evaluation of the performance of the trainees is a must. This could take the form of a course-end examination as well as concurrent review of trainees on their attitude, skills and behaviour. Both could lead to course-end grades. Certificates clearly stating that the team members have been trained to act as Master Trainers at the district level will be awarded by the SMTSO, mentioning the course-end grades attained, in order to maintain quality of trainers and in the interest of transparency.
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State Level Training Organisation
At the state level, a State MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (SMTSO) may also be considered to oversee the training functions throughout the state. This should actually be a Consortium of carefully selected CSOs, available professional and technical institutions with practical experience of planning, who will act as Anchor Organizations (AOs), anchoring the training effort at the state level and creating master trainers and master trainer organizations at the district level. Officials of the state government should also be represented in this SMTSO to ensure maximum coordination, mutual accountability and mutual respect. The purpose of this state level consortium could be to create and recognize District MGNREGA Training and Support Organizations (DMTSO) as outlined above. The SMTSO will also help to formulate training courses, syllabi, training material and also set up district-level training resource centres and identify and appoint persons who can run these centres. In case CSOs capable of performing this role at the state level cannot be found, the SMTSO may consider tying up with the SMTSO of another state for the training requirements of their district level resource centres or inviting interested and prominent CSOs from other states identified by the national-level apex body to set up a centre or office in their state to help them in the task of capacity building by playing the role of AOs.
Basic Training Course of Block and and Village Level Teams Attempted below is an operationalization scenario for training of all VDC and block team members: •
Given that there are about 6000 blocks and about 600 districts in the country, the average number of blocks in a district can be taken to be 10.
•
Each block will have on an average 3 Village Development Cluster (VDC) teams. The combined strength of the implementing teams at the block level and VDC level comes to about 18 personnel (see Chapter 2
36
of this report) in each block at the cutting edge of implementation whose training needs will have to be taken care of. •
With 10 blocks on an average, this means 180 persons. In the first year, the VDC/block teams must undergo a Basic Training Course (BTC) of at least 30 days' duration at the DMTSC. If these 180 persons were to attend the BTC at the DMTSC in batches of 36 (which is an ideal number in terms of trainers being able to attend to trainees), at least 5 batches will have to be trained. This means 5 months of the year.
•
Another two months should be reserved for refresher courses or specialized courses, orientations, workshops, meetings etc. This leaves about 5 months for field support work.
•
At least two field support visits for each VDC of about 7 days each visit must be envisioned. These field support visits will double up as on-site training for the VDC and Block teams, so that the training imparted at the DMTSO will be followed up with on-site training, support and handholding for plan preparation and execution. . A system may be envisioned whereby during the BTC, trainers set the team members practical tasks which the team members have to fulfill by the time of the support visit.
•
In this support visit, a team comprising at least two members from the DMTSO should visit the VDC. In 5 months about 10 VDC field sites can be effectively visited by one team.
•
Since there are about 10 blocks per district on an average, we have 30 VDC teams and 30 VDC field sites. Thus 3 support teams of 2 support persons each at the DMTSC will be able to carry out this workload.
The capacity building of village level community mobilizers can further be undertaken by the implementation team itself, once it is prepared and certified to be prepared. Over time the capacity building and support requirements for MGNREGA will go down or change in character to encompass more areas such as convergence with other programmes and entitlements under other social sector. A system of certification will be established at this level too, whereby the DMTSO will conduct concurrent and course-end evaluation of the implementation team members
37
during the BTC and the on-site field training, on the basis of which a certificate may be issued to the team member, mentioning the grade attained.
The Working Group also recommends that there should also be a space within the operational guidelines wherein CSOs with capacity and calibre can actually function as project implementation teams as well.
.3 Costs Some estimated costs of the DMTSO and the costs of training to be conducted by them have been attempted by the Working Group. It is estimated that provisioning for such a training structure down the line will come to less than 1% of the MGNREGA budget. This cost is expected to decline after the initial years since the more critical handholding requirements will be in the first and second years. However, this 1% of MGNREGA funds needs to be seen as an investment in the future of not only MGNREGA but virtually all rural development interventions since this small amount can effectively mean a very big difference to the total expenditure made and the quality of outcomes thereof. It is recommended therefore that the Operational Guidelines be suitably modified to cater for such expenditure. Where CSOs are inducted for the task of training DMTSOs or play the role of DMTSOs, their training and staff expenses should also be taken care of. The Working Group also takes cognizance of the fact that there is a proposal to create RUDSETI type of institutions at the district level for the NRLM. Possibilities of convergence in terms of infrastructure and human resources for training should be explored so that facilities and human capabilities are used for wage employment programmes to be effectively converged. With MGNREGA effectively providing financial resources for work on the ground which can make an irreversible change to the poverty situation in the country, the case for multilateral donor or aid agencies providing support to the GoI for the “software” portion of MGNREGA is considerably strengthened. This is because the small percentage of funds invested by such agencies in ensuring human resource
38
allocation, capacity building has the potential of leveraging benefits which are several-fold. Such investments are also a step towards ensuring better quality of programme execution, better outcomes from public investment and improvement in the human resource and skill base of the country which is in the form of a permanent investment. Possibilities of inviting such grants-in-aid should be explored. Possibilities of Public-Private-Partnership may also be explored with Indian companies who may see such investment in human resources as part of their CSR and may like to participate either at the state or at the district level by contributing resources. However, such participation should be to ensure that the quality of MGNREGA is improved as per the road map prepared by the NTMSO and approved by the CEGC.
3.4 Quality Issues in Civil Society Participation Within the Working Group there is a shared concern with respect to both participation of Civil Society Organizations and the quality of CSOs with whom partnerships are forged for executing the above recommendations. The Working Group is of the view that there is every need to mainstream high quality CSOs with proven track record into this nation-wide training and capacity building effort. The Working Group considers it fit to particularly mention the efforts made by states such as Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in this regard. While the former has entered into agreements with civil society organizations to partner the state governments, the latter has initiated programmes of natural resource management and convergence with a clear policy on CSO participation. The Working Group also is clear that while bringing CSOs on board, there is need to ensure the highest standards of CSO accountability a concern which has also been voiced by several state governments. However, it has also noted with concern that in discussions with some state governments on this issue, the attitude has sometimes tended to border on throwing the baby out with the bath water and characterizing all CSO participation as a non-starter. It is the understanding of this Working Group that this situation has arisen only partly because of quality of CSOs themselves. It stems
39
in a major part due to an apprehension that their own systems are not geared up enough to keep undesirable elements out of the process.
Discussions of the Working Group with CSOs of different hues and calling have underlined the need for CSO participation and the Working Group recognizes the truly excellent work done by several such organizations in mobilization, participatory planning, execution, social audit and so on. Such CSOs have also cited numerous instances of violations by local administrations or implementation interfaces which have been brought to light by them and which have also led to problems for them. They also cite the fact that their role is not mandated by any formal institutional space within the framework of the Act. As a result, there is also a constant hurdle faced by them of convincing local administrations about their participation and their locus standi. The Working Group is of the view that concerns on both sides may be addressed by adopting an approach which puts premium on quality and provides an autonomous and institutionalized space for the selection and functioning of CSOs. This will ensure to high quality CSOs a space where they can work smoothly and will also ensure a fallback mechanism for them if and when local conditions turn “difficult” for no fault of theirs. The process will also facilitate and strengthen the selection process of CSOs by state governments. This can be done by the National Level body responsible for training leading a joint, two-stage selection and evaluation process, wherein the first round of screening and shortlisting is done by the concerned state level agency and the final round of screening is done by the body with oversight by its Steering Committee. In order to arrive at such a decision, a panel of carefully selected evaluators who evaluate the work of these CSOs should be used. A highlevel search committee may be formed which looks into the issue of empanelment of evaluators. In this entire scheme of things, CAPART could also potentially play a role. However, for this fundamental structural changes will have to take place in the institution in order for it to do justice to this role. The Working Group recommends that this institutional reform process in CAPART should be completed as a precondition to its partnership in the process
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3.5 Designating Institutions as Training and Certification Institutions for MGNREGA Given the urgent need for human resources of quality for the implementation of MGNREGA, the above recommendations point to a medium-term approach to solving the problem, by first matching the supply with demand and then training this supply. However, it needs to be recognized that the creation of human resources is going to challenge MGNREGA implementation constantly. There is thus a need to create a longer term plan for provisioning human resources steadily. This calls for a creation of a human resource pool which may be drawn upon when needed. This Working Group recommends that CSOs identified through the rigorous process described above may be formally recognized as Training Institutions for MGNREGA, with the provision that they can organize and carry out diploma courses for MGNREGA, which are recognized. Such a recognition must only be made for those CSOs who have the capability and practical field implementation experience to play this role. Tie-ups of such CSOs with technical colleges and institutes at state and national level may be further promoted so that students can carry out this diploma course as part of their formal degree course by requesting a field placement or an internship. The duration for such a course should be 6 months to a year and a rigorous system of trainee evaluation should be part of this system.
3.6 Capacity Building Reforms for Strengthening Panchayati Panchayati Raj Panchyati Raj and MGNREGA: Capacity Building reforms for PRIs The Panchayats at district, intermediate and village levels are the principal authorities for the planning and implementation of NREGA under Section 13 of the Act. The main responsibilities of PRIs are outlined in the Sections 13 to 17 (salient features at Annex. I). It is worth recalling here that (i) at least 50 percent of MGNREGA funds are to be spent directly by the Gram Panchayats (GPs), (ii) the Gram Sabhas (GSs) are to recommend specific projects to the GPs and conduct social audit of MGNREGA works, (iii) the District Programme Coordinators and Programme Officers are to assist the District and Intermediate Panchayats respectively in the discharge of their functions. These features of NREGA offer a unique opportunity to strengthen and enable PRIs, particularly the GPs and GSs. The rejuvenated and enabled Panchayats, in turn, can become powerful instruments in making MGNREGA a great success. It is
41
generally seen that States with vibrant and optimally sized Panchayats with requisite manpower have implemented MGNREGA better. For instance, the success of MGRNEGA in Rajasthan is positively correlated with the success of Panchayats in ushering in a new era of decentralization of power which is also turbocharged by new forms of associational energy and public activism. But it is worth recalling here that while panchayats are the primary planning and implementation agency for the MGNREGS, but they are often overburdened without requisite capacity to implement various development programs. There are more than 200 central schemes for rural areas and panchayats have to implement over three-fourths of them. Additionally, the Bharat Nirman programme has a component to be implemented through panchayats. The Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) is also to be implemented by panchayats alone. In a sample study done in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, the World Bank found that, on average, a village sarpanch or official has to keep track of 470 accounts and deal with 17 line departments involving 50 officials. Not only Panchayats are overburdened and understaffed but their critical deliberative and delivery institutions are also not functioning optimally and effectively. The working group has observed in its field visits in states that Gram Sabha rarely meets and occasionally performs its assigned statutory functions in the Act. Therefore, a better symbiosis between the NREGs and PRIs offers a unique opportunity to strengthen & enable PRIs with necessary manpower and infrastructure and in turn the enabled PRIs can become more powerful instrument in making the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA a much better success. The Working Group, based on the field visits and also interactions with key stakeholders that include Ministry of Panchyati Raj, would like to suggest some policy steps for more effective integration of PRIs in the implementing architecture of MGRNEGA;
1. Converting PRIs into Mission Mode:
“Panchayat Empowerment & Accountability Incentive Scheme” of MoPR ( Ministry of Panchyati Raj) may be made an integral part of the Mission. More importantly, the National Capacity Building Framework (NCBF) of MoPR needs to be integrated into the implementation of MGNREGA. As NCBF’s objectives include (a) enabling elected representatives to upgrade their knowledge and skills to better perform their responsibilities, (b) orienting the officials to become more effective technical advisors and implementers of the ideas emerging from the elected representatives, (c) improving the functioning of the Gram Sabha as an important institution of local decision making” etc. it is crucial that NCBF is implemented by the states for enhancing the performance of MGNREGA. 2. Following Maharashtra Experience, state governments need to make six meetings of Gram Sabha as mandatory for enhancing the implementation of MGNREGA. Necessary amendments in the Constitution may be made in this regard. 3. For activation of Gram Sabha, Self-help groups of women may be given a salutatory role by state governments; the meeting of Mahila Groups must precede the meeting of Gram Sabha. Since MoPR (GoI) has already declared 2010 as the “Year of Gram Sabha”, we recommend adopting a “campaign mode of activation of Gram Sabha” with the help of leading civil
42
society groups in a select panchayats in the country. An Expert groups needs to be formed to formulate the moblizational strategy in this regard. 4. Borrowing from Kerala experience, a campaign mode of decentralization must accompany the implementation of MGRNEGA in various states. Either transfer cadre (Kerala model) or create a new cadre for PRI( Bihar model): Learning from Kerala experience, the Working Group suggests that even while the State Government is the staff-creating and cadre-controlling authority, PRIs need to have full freedom in assigning work, supervising its execution, reviewing performance and even imposing minor punishments, if required. In future there should not be any permanent recruitment by the State Govt. for panchayati raj cadre. Instead Gram Panchayat needs to hire local cadre on contractual basis. On successful completion of contract for 35 years, local cadre will become eligible for permanent Govt. employee in future. A proper HR policy must back these measures. 5. Social Audit and participatory planning from MGNREGA could be used for enhancing financial and social accountability through due process in budgeting, transparency in decision making, particularly in selection of beneficiaries and in expenditures and mandatory reporting of performance to constituents. 6. Urgent steps need be taken to deploy essential staff such as Accountants, Gram Rozgar Sewaks, “Barefoot Engineers”, Data Entry Operators, Coordinators for social audit and grievance redressal etc. according to the need/size/terrain etc. of the Panchayats; MGNREGA Staff need not to be used as ‘proxy staff’ for Panchayats but as “ supplemental support systems”. 7. Role clarity: Key GP functionaries should be familiarized with their roles and responsibilities along with precise accountability. This may be facilitated through clear “Job Charts”. A system of modest honorarium and travel expenses need to be considered for representatives of PRIs. This can be financed from levy of local taxes by PRI. 8. Technical Manuals: The working group has noted that training material of a good quality is a gap that needs to be filled urgently, the efforts of a few CSOs, with the support of MoRD in this direction notwithstanding. Technical manuals for MGNREGA works need to be developed in a user-friendly format to facilitate GPs and GSs in the planning and implementation of Act. Some useful technical booklets, films, posters, etc., have already been developed by reputed NGOs such as PRADAN and Samaj Pragati Sahayog. The manuals prepared by MKKS and Right to Food Activists may also be used for MGNREGA. 9. It is recommended that as a first step, the good quality print and video training/awareness material available should be identified and translated into different regional languages and printed. State governments should be encouraged pro-actively to use them at the block and GP level. 10. Further, the apex body to be constituted at the national level should induct CSOs and domain experts to identify gaps in the training material and assess the needs of different stakeholders w.r.t. training resource material. On the basis of such an assessment, preparation of fresh resource material may be commissioned in different languages. The possibilities of e-learning portals
43
on MGNREGA, along with interactive e-courses on CDROM should also be explored. Finally, e-networks such as the National Knowledge Network should also be used for capacity building purposes.
11. Media(Electronic and print) and Community Radio: Rural newspapers such as ‘Khabar Lahariya, run by women in places like Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh needs to be given special support for promoting awareness about the employment guarantee Program by MoPR and MoRD.. Similarly, community radio and community video volunteers need to be used for monitoring and social audit of MGNREGA. Technical and financial support to promote rural media needs to be supported under the administrative expenses and states need to be given flexibility to rely on local, indigenous resources. 12. Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras: Infrastructural and Moblizational Capacity Building Support for PRIs ;The construction of Bhart Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra’ under schedule I para 1(g) at the Gram Panchyat and Block level vide notification no. S.O. 2877(E) dated 11/11/2009( MoRD) is a much needed step to bridge the gaps/shortages in ‘infrastructural resources’ for Panchayati Raj Institutions and also provide additional support facilities for establishing dedicated office of MGNREGA for implementation at the GP and Block level. As we know that there are about 40% of Panchayats in the country without any building for office space; several states barring Kerala have long been demanding infrastructural and human resource support for robust functioning of PRIs. The Working Group agrees with the policy guidelines of constructing Bhart Nirman RGSK and supports the construction of BNRGSK on a priority basis over the next three years as a major capacity building initiatives under MGRNEGA for realisation of the rights of labourers and reenergizing PRIs in the implementation of MGNREGA. The major capacity building activities at the Gram Panchyat/ Block level could easily be placed. BNRGSV should be equipped with telephones, photocopiers, fax machines etc. This will function as an ICT enabled “Knowledge Resource Center” or “Public Facilitation Centres’ where MGNREGA labourers can submit applications for job cards, works, Muster roll scrutiny, Complaints and interact with MGNREGA staff/personnel along with representatives from PRIs. This will also enable mobilization of labourers through the proposed scheme of Lok Sevak/Lok Karmis for social audit. The grievances may be transferred to the concerned NREGA authorities and Ombudsman for disposal. Software on People’s Information System with touch screen facilities may be developed and hosted in these centres to ensure quick delivery of information and recording of public views and complaints. Toll free helpline services can also be provided at the RGSK and also be equipped with the facility to facilitate coordination with the Media, organize visits of media persons to worksites, track media stories on MGNREGA
44
implementation and refer them to the MGNREGA Authorities for verification. BNRGSK will also function as Single window information centre for all MGNREGA related information, and most importantly, all training and capacity building efforts could be organized at BNRGSK at the GP and block level. Additionally, BNRGSK will also help set the tone for facilitating the implementation of Panchyati Raj activities into a ‘Mission Mode’. 11. National Institute of Panchayati Raj;The working group recommends setting up a National Institute of Panchayati Raj for greater convergence between MoRD and MoPR and develop an integrated framework of capacity building on every aspect of village life which impacts PRIs and implementation of MGNREGA. Since there is no National level or apex institution to guide, coordinate, monitor and integrate the various activities of the PRIs, the implementation of MGNREGA misses out on the strategic support from PRIs. The coordination between NIRD and a National Institute of Panchayati Raj will lead to greater coordination on issues of training needs assessment (TNA), capacity assessment (CA), networking with NGO partners, sharing of best practices, training of trainers (ToT), and module development etc. in the planning, implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA.
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CHAPTER – IV
A New Cyberstructure for MGNREGA: ICT/GIS BASED CAPACITY BUILDING REFORMS
Information Technology for Management Support Apart from implementation, a critical role in ensuring entitlements under MGNREGA is that of monitoring. To ensure timely delivery of deliverables in any egovernance initiative, concurrent monitoring is a must. In this endeavour, apart from professional assistance that IT for MGNREGA becomes crucial in ensuring best results. Already, the IT system for MGNREGA is a pioneer in terms of the huge amount of information that it has warehoused and made available. We look at how this good start could be made better. The potential advantage of using IT systems for governance lies in: 1. the speed with which data can be processed and made available in meaningful forms 2. the availability of data nearly concurrently with its online updation/entry through networks, so that information is available pro-actively and to a larger audience (in a paper system, this information would have to be dug out to become available) 3. the breaking of artificial barriers of geography, boundaries etc. to flow of information (in paper systems such boundaries do not automatically break there therefore a systemic support for information suppression)
46
Of these, the last two are key to engendering transparency and together all three make for contributions in governance which only IT make. Thus, IT systems can become tremendous potential allies in concurrent monitoring, enabling preventives to be placed in line before situations deteriorate. They can also directly enable attaining entitlements and finally, they can become potent tools for grievance redressal
4.1 Usefulness of IT in the MGNREGA Context We look at the present status of IT systems in the MGNREGA context and discuss how it can be improved. The following table illustrates the broad stages of MGNREGA workflow and the requirements of different stakeholders. MGNREGA Workflow and Stakeholder Expectations from IT Stakeholders and Objectives of IT Use Wage Seekers
Implementors
Monitors/ Grievance Redressers
Primary Objective: Getting Entitlement in the Act
Primary Objective: Implementing and Planning Work to Fulfill Legal Mandate
Primary Objective:
Stages of MGNREGA 7 Workflow
What IT must Enable to Fulfill these Objectives
•
Worker registration and issue of job cards
•
•
Work demand applications
•
•
Planning and 8 estimation
•
Sanction of
Monitor Programme for Quality, Smooth Out Bottlenecks and Ensure that Entitlements Reach Wage Seekers on Time
•
demand for work must be visible to implementor work must be provided within the stipulated time wages for work done should be paid transparently,
•
•
•
that information of work demand reaches them estimates and plans are drawn up in the shortest possible time to meet this demand estimates of
•
•
availability of updated information which is as close to reality as possible tracking of the implementation of the MGNREGA schemes as they go from
7
This does not attempt to capture all complexities involved in the work flow but is offered more by way of illustration. A more detailed discussion on the workflow (as analyzed for the APREGS) can be found in Tata Consultancy Services (2006)
8
Although shown in a sequence, planning and estimation are not activities that need to wait for work demand . Nor should work demand be contingent upon work estimates prepared which seems to be the de facto situation today, because proper shelves of work rarely exist. So work demand on the MIS is always made equal to the work supplied by the simple method of normally entering work demand when a particular work has been estimated and sanctioned
47 work •
Estimating material requirements
•
Start of work
•
Daily attendance and preparation of muster rolls
•
Measurement and valuation at fixed intervals
•
Preparation of pay order
•
Payment to wage-seekers through bank accounts
•
Accounts/book keeping
•
•
without any leakages and preferably at the doorstep work done must be visible to monitors to ensure that entitlements are fairly met non-fulfilment of demand or noncompliance with legal requirements of wage payments should become known to monitors for concurrent redressal
•
•
•
•
cost are not bloated the process of sanctions and releases is expedited work is started with minimum delay worker payments are made within a stipulated time wage payments reach workers and fraud and fudging is rooted out
stage to stage
However, for IT to be able to deliver along the above lines a necessary condition is that it becomes central to the workflow and is tightly integrated end to end. In mixed mode systems, IT often ends up being an appendage to the main workflow which is carried out through the normal channels of paper. Under the circumstances there is no a-priori reason to presume that the information in the IT system is up to date. Hence the cutting edge advantage is lost. In addition, for maximization of benefits, it requires a system that is real time and online. The first is a case for better use of IT. The second requires better connectivity backbones and hardware and innovations to ensure that more and more such aspects of work are brought under the purview of IT which are traditionally thought of as belonging to the domain of notesheets and files. Both of the above lead to a situation that enables information to be as fresh as possible across a network and thus enable tighter monitoring. We discuss below some possible directions in which IT systems need to move (and are already moving in some states), with the recommendation that the MGNREGA implementation and monitoring system is strengthened by mainstreaming these. Where needed, the MoRD needs to build partnerships and common steering groups in order to enable this, such as with the UIDAI. Online Real Time Work Demand A common issue with work demand is that work demand is not immediately visible on the MIS. It is equal to the work supplied because entries are made post-
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facto. It is also quite common for functionaries to refuse to entertain work demand applications because of lack of adequate preparedness to open works. Under the circumstances, information on real work demand may be suppressed. In terms of IT for monitoring, the issue is to make this work demand visible as soon as it arises. If MGNREGA correspondents with a handlheld or a computer are available even within the perimeter of the GVS or the Block, the application can be made online. For those monitoring the system, this is enough information to trigger needed oversight functions. A cellphone based online work demand application system can be worked out wherein a short message from a wage seeker's cellphone in a predefined format lodges itself on a server at the state level. The PO's office, which is also part of the network takes cognizance of the application and ensures that employment is provided. It needs to be emphasized here that from the viewpoint of IT for monitoring MGNREGA, the sanctity of the work demand application is unquestionable. Since this is the demand which the entire system is geared to provide and is thereby a monitoring yardstick against which the sluggishness of the delivery system needs to be measured. Similarly, the opening of works is again an event which is recorded post-facto along with wage payments. If the initial work demand is visible, the system will be able to flag any delays in subsequent stages and raise the necessary alerts down the line. Online Real Time Grievance Redressal A similar system can be visualized for complaints and their redressal. Either they are entered through handhelds or directly by the wage seeker through her cellphone and the complaint is lodged to a central server. A recent move in Uttar Pradesh to enable a cellphone based complaints and grievance redressal system is on simlar lines (see Seth, 2009) The major contribution of such IT reforms will be to ensure greater and tighter monitoring of MGNREGA work so that essential parameters of timely delivery are ensured. It will also support, by making available current information for public scrutiny such as social audits. Together with decentralisation of implementation, this is the second step in ensuring that the core objectives of MGNREGA are met. Real Time Online Muster Rolls, Work Attendance and Measurements A system can be visualized whereby handhelds are issued to field workers under MGNREGA, and muster rolls are directly updated online to the state-level servers by biometric identification of the workers who are present on site. Such an immediate updation will go a long way in aiding concurrent monitoring. In fact, the paper muster roll can be a print out of the online muster. Fitted with GPS and webcam facilities, the system should further aid in verification of the work being done on the site at which is reportedly being done. It seems that this has also already
49
been piloted in different states by the MoRD. The results of this pilot should be made public and appropriate policies framed on the feedback. Alternatively, all job card holders in a village are loaded in the registered mobile available with the field assistant. Each day, for each work, the muster attendance is easily registered name-wise and sent to the central computer by a compressed SMS system. Details of the number of workers at each work-site can be queried both on the website and through SMS by any interested public for verification. The verification teams use this extensively to weed out any bogus muster rolls. Each technical assistant responsible for taking measurements is given a mobile phone where measurements are recorded and sent by compressed SMS to the central server along with GPS coordinates. This will ensure that the TAs visit the work site and avoids delay in processing the payments at the mandal computer centers
4.2 Biometrics and UID-Enabled IT Application Layer for MGNREGA Each of the online systems referred to above can use the authentication mechanism proposed under the UIDAI. Non-repudiable, de-duplicable and possibly bi-directional9 authentication mechanisms, with a facility for beneficiaries locking their identification information10 have been mooted as part of the UIDAI design. This has the potential of engendering far greater transparency than a paper based system which is far more susceptible to identity fraud. Simultaneously, this mechanism can also ensure that crucial data are concurrently available for monitoring. The identity can function as a single window for the entitlements of the poor not only under MGNREGA but all government schemes such as the proposed Food Security Act, health care, education and so on. The business of manual updation of job cards and
9
A bi-directional authentication mechanism can potentially prevent identity fraud made possible through system crackers cracking the handheld device used for authentication and using it to spoof identity. Consider the following: the UID holder (say a MGNREGA worker) authenticates against the UID servers through her biometrics. The equipment used to facilitate this authentication may be a handheld device. The underlying technology used in the device may be cracked by malicious crackers to spoof the identity. Under the circumstances, a bi-directional authentication mechanism also authenticates the handheld device for its genuineness and integrity.
10
Once the transaction is over, the beneficiary, using her identification mechanism, locks her identity data. Essentially, this means that only she can herself unlock it, thus preventing unauthorized access, misuse and possible encroachments on privacy.
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the consequent bad practices of some people keeping workers cards can potentially become redundant. The technology architecture of UID is geared towards using biometrics11 based authentication systems on the basis of a unique identity number. The system is proposed to guarantee maximum accuracy when it is used online. It is quite clear from the UIDAI design architecture that smartcard technologies are not part of the architecture. The authentication mechanism is biometric based and does not need smart cards. Further, differing backend technologies for smartcard-based authentication, or any other design point which violates the fundamental principles of open standards and interoperability are unacceptable to the UID design. Since UID is going to be the identity proving mechanism in the not-too-distant future, its relationship with any application layer in the social sector becomes critical and synergistic. Critical because (1) any non-UID based authentication architecture potentially faces the problem of non-conformance and redundancy in the not-toodistant future; and (2) if the MGNREGA IT architecture is not sufficiently prepared for the backend authentication proposed by the UID, there will be problems. Synergistic because the sort of connectivity backbone that is required to make UID authentication foolproof will also benefit MGNREGA. It is this Working Group's recommendation that a coordination mechanism between MGNREGA and UID is pro-actively worked out by MoRD. It is on the basis of this understanding that a clear IT plan to be rolled out should be made so that MGNREGA has strategically positioned itself to maximize the wage-seeker's benefits. Another advantage of a single unified identification mechanism is in its potential to make possible digital sanctions and orders by providing a mechanism for non-repudiable authentication of any transaction. This can greatly speed up processing of work flows at critical points and its uses for MGNREGA also need to be explored.
4.3 Banking Correspondent Model Labour payments in MGNREGA through banks or post office accounts12 have been made compulsory since 2008. With 80 million MGNREGA wage seeker bank accounts opened and 80% of MGNREGA wage payments already being made through this route, MGNREGA has ushered in unprecedented financial inclusion.
11
There is also considerable debate around the use of biometrics and its efficacy in a high-volume transaction environment. The GoI has set up a Committee for framing the Biometric Standards for UID has also been set up (http://uidai.gov.in/documents/Biometric%20Standards%20Committee%20Notification.pdf)
12
In this section, the term "bank" is used to mean banks and post offices
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Under the circumstances, it is desirable to think of ways in which the problems in the system are taken care of such as: •
There are not enough bank branches to deal with the number of wageseeker accounts that need to be created.
•
The accounts, if created, have a lot of paper work associated with them and banks are understaffed to take on this load, or otherwise do not see it as a profitable enough proposition.
•
At payment time, there are a large number of wage-seekers who come for cash withdrawal to cater to by a very small staff.
•
Panchayats too do not have the human resources to help wageseekers with all the paper formalities that banks require to be completed
•
wage-seekers are often not aware of bank procedures and do not know how to use their accounts
•
bank branches are located at a large distance from where the workers live, so it is difficult for the to make frequent trips. For wage-seekers under NREGA, frequent cash withdrawals are necessitated because this cash is used to facilitate day to day consumption
most shockingly, there may arise different types of collusion mechanisms to beat the system. A "good samaritan" in the village can volunteer to make withdrawals on behalf of several villagers. He can collect their passbooks, get withdrawal slips signed, fill in one amount and give the wage-seeker another, or ask for a cut for his services. Even more serious cases are cited where for instance, contractors get bank accounts opened in the name of the wage-seekers without their knowledge. He then, along with the panchayat sewak fabricates muster rolls. Whatever money is transferred to the bank accounts of the labourers is eaten up by the two and unscrupulous elements in the bank Despite its various problems, everyone (including the villagers themselves) are agreed that payment through bank transfers is a good thing and must stay. Its basic premises of separating those in-charge of work execution from those in-charge of payments and doing away with the handling of cash is fundamentally sound. Here the role of Information Technology is being leveraged. All payments with effect from March 2011 needs to be done in the village using bio-metric identification process through smart cards. Under this, each beneficiary is issued a biometric smart card (finger print technology) at the village level. In each village, Banks place a Customer Service Provider (CSP) identified by the banker equipped with a smart card reader networked to the bank server. Each beneficiary is given a bank account after biometric authentication by the bank. All disbursements are credited •
52
electronically to the accounts of the beneficiaries. Banks arrange cash to the CSP using a Business Correspondent (BC). The MIS showing disbursement is available online. A printer may give out details of the transaction as a paper record. While extending the BC model to MGNREGA beneficiaries, a critical issue is one of accountability, transparency and oversight. If individuals are chosen as BCs there is a risk of unwanted practices setting in because of a lack of strong regulatory mechanisms. There is also a risk that influential village persons may be found fit to become BCs, which may actually be opening a backdoor entry channel for moneylenders or may otherwise be discriminatory against the poor. A possible solution to this issue which takes care of the accountability concerns while using the BC model to the MGNREGA worker's advantage, may be to harness the BC function within the MGNREGA's Project Officer and VDC Team. Thus the PO's office and its associated VDCs are institutional BCs and it is the institution which is responsible for the individuals carrying out the interface at the village level.
4.4 Asset Management System for MGNREGA Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group recommends setting up ICT/GIS enabled Assets Management System for MGNREGA. (AMS).( Ref to Appendix on the Workshop). This may be anchored /located in the Independent Research and Evaluation Division at the proposed Jaipur branch of NIRD (MoRD). Annual census of Assets of MGNREGA and regular updates on the progress of works could easily be monitored by the proposed AMS. This policy recommendation is in line with discussion being initiated by MoRD (Ref to 5Feb2010 MoRD Workshop on Decentralized Planning and Monitoring) A Public – Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. The district administration with the help of ICT enabled ‘Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras ‘(RGSKs) at the panchayat and block levels would uplink the AMS to NREGA division of MoRD. In view of enormous size, complexity of implementing MGNREGA in diverse social, political and geo-climatic conditions and challenges of transparency and accountability, the Working Group recommends state governments to make best use of latest Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and frontier technologies like GIS to help ensuring effective planning, implementation and proper management of the programme and to bring transparency and accountability at all levels of implementation. Since MGNREGA is not only about wage payment but also about creating ‘durable assets’, (Section 2 Schedule1), census of asset on a continuous basis has emerged a major challenge. Let us not forget that MGNREGA
53
has increasingly come under serious criticism for undertaking unviable and untraceable works. Planning Commission of India in its studies have pointed that the actual ground level status of works is unknown in most cases unless physical verification is carried out. Therefore, the Working Group suggests setting up a robust and dynamic ICT/GIS enabled “Assest Management System’ as one of the most crucial ‘second generation reforms” for making MGNREGA a great success! Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group favours Assets Management System being anchored /located in the ‘Monitoring and Evaluation’ Division at the proposed Jaipur branch of NIRD (MoRD) or alternatively ‘Technical Secretariat’ of MGNREGA at MoRD. Annual census of Assets of MGNREGA and regular updates on the progress of works could easily be monitored by the proposed AMS. This policy recommendation is in line with discussion being initiated by MoRD (Ref; MoRD Workshop 14 Feb/2010). A Public – Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. As mentioned in the ToR’s section a, subsection (iii) for “Strengthening Administrative systems at all levels”, creating Assets Management System is intended to enhance the capacity of existing administrative systems for efficient, effective and transparent delivery and tracking systems in MGNREGA. The Asset Management System will also support and promote application of various other ICT/GIS technologies for better implementation of MGNREGA in the country. Policy Implications of applying ICT/GIS tools for MGNREGA Many states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, UP, West Bengal, Kerala, etc. have started using ICT tools like smart cards and hand held devices for the wage disbursement. ICT initiatives like Smart Cards have the potential to capture details of the Workers, Work and Wages (WWW) including the muster rolls and the job cards. One innovative aspect of smart cards and hand held devices are to use them, from wage disbursement to make them operate like a Job card, so that all transactions of MGNREGA programme be captured, like: registration, Job card, demand for work, issue of dated receipt, allotment of work, entry into muster roll like attendance from the field through hand held devices, which will be able to record latitude and longitude of the area, ensuring presence of worker at the worksite and using biometric based technology or through low cost ATMs. Among ICT initiatives, the Smart card and hand held devices have additional advantage of capturing delays and can be updated instantly in the MIS and accessible to the beneficiaries as well as the public, enhancing the management and monitoring of the programmes. Geospatial technologies play a key role in generating timely and reliable information for planning and decision making at all the levels, i.e., from macro to micro. Even though it is widely recognized that Geographic Information System (GIS) has the capacity to analyse both spatial and non-spatial data including temporal aspects in a cost-effective and efficacious manner, its application at micro-level for utilities planning and resource management is fast emerging with the advancement of GPS
54
and High Resolution Satellite Data. Planning at micro-level, a village is considered to be a viable micro-administrative unit and development of spatial database infrastructure at village level will help in inventorying these resources into micro-level database, which can be a emerging potential technology tool for MGNREGS for effective planning, implementation and proper management of the Programme The GIS based integrated geo-database at village level consisting of various thematic maps (e.g., village boundary map, block/tehsil boundaries maps, etc.), demographic data, socio-economic data and data related to infrastructural facilities (e.g., roads, educational facilities, health facilities, drinking water, power supply, etc.), proves a critical base for judicious decision making and realtime applications at village level. A GIS based spatial model identifies the spatial gaps for provision of basic facilities and to propose new village locations for providing additional infrastructure by effective implementation of development programmes and policies. It is expected that user friendly GIS based spatial data infrastructure generated at microadministrative unit will increase the efficacy of administration and resource mobilization as well as help in informed decision-making, thus generation of a Geographical Information System (GIS) based for Micro-level Planning evolving an application areas of Participatory GIS, for identifying strategies for community empowerment. Thus GIS offers solutions for social, rural development planning and provides an opportunity for Panchayats for integrated local development. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is an example of frontier technology, promoting the concept of convergence. Systems developed with integration of spatial and non-spatial data, has brought a paradigm shift in implementation of GIS technology by extensive use of Satellite Remote Sensing, Global Positioning and other mobile mapping technologies. With power of integration, GIS today is being considered the nerve system for planning and has been providing effective services around the world. Visualization of terrain through high resolution satellites data, aerial pictures or maps, LIDAR captures spatial data. Embedded in GIS with nonspatial information has brought revolutionary changes in the implementation of traditional Management Information System (MIS). The power of visualization not only projects the ground reality, but also is capable of validating data. Possible Areas of ICT & GIS intervention An ICT and GIS interventions in the implementation of NREGA is important from the following perspective: k) ICT & GIS ensures transparency and help in information dissemination (b) An ICT & GIS tools are required because the size of the programme is very large, not only from the geographical and financial perspective but from the perspective of the size of the target group of beneficiaries as well. l) ICT & GIS facilitates online monitoring and evaluation of the programme. The timely feedback helps in timely corrective actions. m) An ICT & GIS tools help in social audits whereby the local bodies and citizens may actually audit the programme at their end.
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n) ICT& GIS plays important role every phase of the implementation of the MGNREGA. Communication & Mobilization 4. Some of the ICT interventions that can be possibly used for communication & mobilization include community radio, television, public address systems, panchayat websites and the Internet to publicize the NREGA. 5. Information kiosks that have been set up in some villages and the 100,000 Common Service Centres being implemented by the Dept. of IT can be used as focal points to disseminate information on the scheme. 6. Village Resource Centre which has both communication and GIS and Satellite Remote Sensing based resource information on various works undertaken under MGNREGS for planning, implementation and monitoring. Planning Phase 1.
2.
3.
Creation of a database of durable, productive, labour-intensive works at Panchayat level. Mapping out socially productive and durable assets/infrastructure which can be created in the respective zones/clusters. Issuing of job cards, digitization of muster rolls, persons employed, their output, wage rates, working hours etc can also be available for verification by the Panchayats, peers and the community through the use of ICT & GIS The use of Smart Cards/Biometric cards to identify and track every beneficiary in the region and can be integrated with GIS.
Execution of Works •
•
•
Works Management System with authentic records of the attendance at the worksites with simultaneous updating of the employment records is necessary. Works identified in a particular block to be taken up under the scheme must be available for viewing and measurement by all Panchayats within that block. Work Flow Automation System may be introduced since the approval of works, allocation of works to an implementing agency etc. must be sanctioned by the Programme Officer or such local authority (including the Panchayats at the district, intermediate or village level). Disbursement of wages and unemployment allowance.
Monitoring
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1. ICT provides for ensuring that the members of the designated rural household are only availing the guarantee of 100 days of employment and their wage employment rights are not being misused by others. Biometric systems like fingerprint recognition may be used as potential solutions to address this issue. A fingerprint recognition based time and attendance system at the front-end backed by a comprehensive computerized MIS at the back-end may be able to address the issue. 2. Geographical Information System – The use of GIS can greatly enhance the monitoring of the NREGS. Digital maps can be made available for viewing to show the assets that have been created under the scheme and provide for the assessment of the quality of assets created. Grievance Redressal System Citizens registration of grievances at all Panchayat Levels and in offices of the Programme Officer and the District Programme Coordinator, made available online. 1. Citizens to track their grievances online. 2. Number of households demanding jobs and number of households who have been issued job cards. 3. Avoiding payment of unemployment allowance, whoever is provided a job is registered. 4. Variations in wage rates paid State wise. SMS based fund transfer To enable speeding up the process of fund transfers an innovative solution using mobile phones has been suggested. It works as follows; Site Assistant Engineer sends the day's muster roll of NREGS beneficiaries by SMS. Village Payment Agent receives the SMS Village Payment Agent makes payment to NREGS beneficiaries based on muster roll received, a second SMS about payments made is sent to Panchayati Raj Department's Banker .On receiving the SMS, the Panchayati Raj Department's Banker transfers funds to Village Payment Agent's bank account. SMS database will be integrated with NREGS web portal to generate weekly payment details. Using Rural ATMs The low-cost rural ATM (Gramin-teller) can be implemented if the bank account transfer mechanism is put in place. The ATM works with both used and new notes and has a fingerprint based authentication system. It works on very low power with a built-in battery back-up and does not require air conditioning. Synergetic Approach There are other projects like Common Service Centres, e-Panchayats, etc., percolating down to the panchayat level and State-Wide Area Networks are also
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available at the panchayat level in some States, where the use of ICT & GIS in NREGA implementation should be seen in synergy and complementary to all these initiatives that are contemplated or in progress. Then only can the full potential of ICT be harnessed for empowering the common citizen.
CHAPTER V STRENGTHENING RESEARCH AND EVALUATION SYSTEMS FOR MGNREGA
Policy Evaluation and Research Systems (PERS) Policy evaluation is a systematic process for assessing the design, implementation and outcomes, intended or unintended, of public policies. Evaluation uses social science research methods, including qualitative, quantitative and participatory techniques, to examine the effects of policies. Some policy scholars describe policy making as a sequential process marked by distinct steps, such as agenda-setting, policy formulation, adoption and implementation. For others, evaluation/assessment is the final step in this process. However, they all caution that the public policy process is ongoing, with evaluation often resulting in policy changes/correction which are then implemented and evaluated again. Policy evaluation enables all participants in the policy process, including legislators, executives, agency officials and citizens at large, to measure the degree to which a program/scheme has achieved its goals, assess the effects and identify any needed changes to a policy. The two main types of policy evaluation are formative and summative evaluation. Formative evaluation examines the operations of the program, usually for the purpose of improving the program and assessing its implementation. For example, most PIN studies of MoRD are primarily formative evaluation. Summative evaluation
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asks whether the program achieved its intended goals. Often, the best policy evaluations employ a creative hybrid or syncretic approach that uses both formative and summative techniques. Policy evaluation is rarely as simple or straightforward as some analysts may suggest. Factors that complicate evaluations include identifying goals, measuring performance and isolating the effects of policy from those of other endogenous or exogenous factors. Let us not forget that though policy makers often want immediate information on policy effects, but many programs/schemes have long-term effects (cascading or ripple) that will not be known in the short term. Objectives: As the implementation of MGNREGA has entered its fifth year in a row, the Working Group recommends setting up PERS as a continuous policy evaluation and research think tank for enhancing the capacity of MoRD in its effective and efficient implementation of MGNREGA by developing innovative participatory approaches and syncretic methodologies for impact analysis, anticipating policy research needs of key stakeholders and responding to specific policy analysis requests in the areas of innovation, convergence and capacity building on all current and emerging issues in MGNREGA. Additionally, PERS would also function as a forum and clearinghouse for the sharing of information as well as the dissemination of best practices through workshops, seminars, publication of journals, reports, bulletins, briefs and other literature . PERS would also help create an environment for imparting expertise to people interested in rigorous program evaluation and training to policy makers/implementers on how to conduct randomized and qualitative evaluations in social policies. With a rigorous adherence to objectives of MGNREGA especially articulating voices of poor in the realm of livelihood security , PERS would help create a robust, dynamic and self-evolving knowledge-space that is authoritative, objective, nonpartisan and transparent in generic terms of monitoring and evaluation as mentioned in the Section 11 of the Act. Further, PERS is intended to breakdown the silos in social science research and deepen the sphere of participatory and informed dialogue between policy makers and civil society. Why PERS? In the existing architecture of governance and capacity building support for MGNREGA, there is nothing in terms of independent policy research and evaluation support at the central or state level. PIN (Professional Institutional Network) in the MGNREGA cell of MoRD i operates on the principles of ex-postfacto analysis of the implementation of MGRNEGA and does not work on the principles of continuous and comprehensive evaluation/appraisal Though Professional Institutional Network (PIN) has been instituted as an “integrated structure” (or network) for concurrent appraisal, diagnosis, remedial action and capacity building for steady, sustainable interventions, to enhance the quality of the programme, the impact of PIN studies on course correction, innovation and policy change is rather limited at present. So far 61 studies have been commissioned by MoRD for the network of PIN but only 25 studies have been completed for policy appraisal in the last four years. Bulk of PIN studies (about 37 studies) have been commissioned in the last two years. Many of them have not yet submitted draft report. PIN also suffers usual selection bias, standardized format for impact analysis, and arbitrary criteria for choosing partners of PIN as it is not currently handled by development professionals and evaluation experts. There is also not clarity about the strategic vision of PIN. For instance, it is not clear what NIIT would do in its analysis of implementation of MGNREGA in the state of Delhi. Consider the case of
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Central Institute for Fisheries Education, Mumbai. Rather than doing study on ‘convergence” between MGNREGA and fisheries” or pissiciculture, the institute was awarded study on a generic impact analysis in Thane and Akola. Now, Central Institute of Fisheries Education has been give to undertake a generic impact analysis in the country. In contrast, leading experts on poverty and rural development in places like Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research or IIT in Mumbai were either not consulted or not considered good enough to undertake impact analysis. . Based on the field visit, interaction and meeting with key officials at NIAR (LABSNA) the Working Group on 28 April 2010 does not think that NIAR is equipped with enough in-house resources, skills, aptitudes and backed by quality researchers including dedicated professionals to justify the role of “ National Resource Center” for MGNREGA. In short, members of Working Group recommend that the NIAR needs to focus more seriously on research for teaching and training of career civil servants rather than undertaking Livelihood based development research across a broad band of spectrum of issues.. At the most, NIAR could be given resources for organizing peer learning workshops especially for DPC/ Collectors and senior civil servants. Though MGNREGA is anchored in the decentralized administration of PRIs, the role of career civil servants especially District Collectors better known as District Program Coordinators (DPC) continues to be critical to the success of MGNREGA. (For a detailed report on NIAR, kindly refer to Annexure) Though MoRD has now set up an Expert Group to recommend innovative methodologies for carrying our impact analysis, and commissioning impact analysis studies, there is urgent need for reforms of existing systems of evaluation and institutionalization of National Assessment or Evaluation System at the disposal of MoRD. The MGNREGA Technical Secretariat mainly provides administrativeprofessional support for the execution of MGNREGA as per the provisions of the Act. The Executive Committee of the Central Council is primarily an executive body engaged in giving directions to carry out the mandate of the Central Council. Barring PIN, there is no robust mechanism of continuous and comprehensive policy evaluation or appraisal of the implementation of MGNREGA at the state level. As they are mostly involved in the training programmes and providing logistic support to various programmes of Rural Development, NIRD and SIRDs have also not done more than lip-service to the needs of policy analysis of MGNREGA. Given the scale, reach and significance of MGNREGA in transforming the lives of poor and altering the meaning of social sector, an independent policy evaluation and research service is urgently required for MoRD.
Vision of PERS: Supported by existing mechanism of field-research based studies of PIN (Professional Institutional Network,) PERS would encourage interdisciplinary research methodologies in its framework of policy evaluation and analysis. The Book Series, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Policy Briefs and Working Papers (published periodically) would present substantial research findings on data, methodological, and conceptual issues related to the implementation of MGNREGA. PERS would continue to use PIN’s network for commissioning research from independent researchers, collaborators, and partner institutions (Universities, Social Science Institute, IITs/IIMs etc) across the country. This will link governmental and
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non-governmental efforts in areas of policy research for MGNREGA and also give credence to research studies undertaken by PIN. In other words, PERS would be ICT enabled ‘knowledge hub’ platform for academicians, development professionals, NGOs, policy makers and government officials for debate and dialogue on monitoring and evaluation in MGNREGA. The ultimate goal of PERS is to evolve into a ‘National Center for Excellence’ on Rural Livelihood through using state of art ‘evidence –based methodologies’ for developing policy recommendations/interventions from the perspectives of the vulnerable, disadvantaged and the marginalised.
Location of PERS: It should ideally be located in the proposed branch of NIRD in Jaipur (Rajasthan). Headed by eminent persons from academia, development sector, civil society, and bureaucrats having experience in social sector, PERS would be functionally independent and may be registered as an autonomous society within the purview of MoRD. Or alternatively, PERS could be conceptualized as a dedicated division of Research and Evaluation in the Technical Secretariat of MGNREGA in MoRD. Ideally, this should be headed by eminent scholars/researchers from academia, development sector and civil society. Structure of PERS: PERS will be composed of three units (or sections); namely “Independent Evaluation or Impact Assessment Unit’ that will focus on various implementing aspects including impact analysis and appraisal of MGNREGA. Second, ‘Research and Analysis Unit’ will be a new avatar of current PIN (Professional Institutional Network) for commissioning, guiding, and coordinating studies from a network of universities, social science institutes, and civil society organizations for fostering public-private partnership in the monitoring and evaluation of MGNREGA. Third unit will be “ Publication &Communication Unit”. This will be primarily responsible for publishing Policy Briefs, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Working Papers, documentaries, short films etc. for effective and transparent dissemination of information and setting the stage for informed dialogue between people and the government about the implementation of MGNREGA. Functions of PERS ---- It will provide critical policy research support to crucial areas of improving delivery systems, innovation, convergence and social audit in the implementation of MGNREGA. It will act like a “think tank” or policy hub” for incubation of research and analysis support to key stakeholders of MGNREG. In short, it will provide privatepublic interface in the assessment/evaluation of MGNREGA. ---- It will assist the Central Council and MGNREGA Technical Secretariat of MoRD by conducting independent research, review, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of the implementing of MGNREGA for better policy feedback, impact analysis and innovation in course correction strategies. -- It will operationally facilitate institutionalizing consortium approach of MoRD as reflected/articulated in PIN (Professional Institutional Network). In other words, PERS will formulate appropriate research methodologies and also commission studies from the network of PIN. Additionally, PERS will also provide knowledge support to NIRD and SIRDs in areas of training and capacity building. In short, PERS
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is proposed as “National Resource Support System” for implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA. ------ For greater public participation or what we call institutionalization of “epistemic community “ in the development discourses, PERS will also encourage and assist MoRD to support setting up ‘Centres for excellence in Rural Development/Livelihood’ and endowment of professorial chair/fellowship in the universities and research institutions. A beginning could be made from Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, known for best practices in the implementation of MGNREGA, in 2010-11. ----PERS would also operate as ‘MGNREGA Observatory’ and organize ‘knowledge events’ in collaboration with PIN partners through public lectures, seminars, workshops, conferences that inform practices of evaluation research and analysis. PERS could also organize exhibitions, for example of cartoons, photography and documentary on MGNREGA.
CHAPTER VI
CAPACITY BUILDING REFORMS FOR TRAINING A. The Present Status of Training 1. The list of stake holders currently being imparted training is not inclusive. 2. There exists variation in the contents, methodology, duration, expected outcome and available physical infrastructure in training programmes of MGNREGA across states in India. (Example: Kerala, AP, NE States, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra). 3. Although, some of these variations can be explained in terms of different nature of institutions and stakeholders involved, level of social moblization and presence of regional specificities yet a good amount of variation is due to unnecessarily differently designed course contents and delivery mechanisms. 4. In all the states, most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including DPCs, ADPCs, POs, Line Officers, Zilla Parishad Heads, Panchayat Samiti Chairmen, Gram Panchayat Heads, Civil Society Members do not realize that NREGA is meant to be an effective process of rural development but not an end in itself in the form of
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wage employment. They fail to understand that MGNREGA is an effective intervention in contemporary rural development practice. This failure in understanding, leads to consider MGNREGA as simply a wage employment programme. 5. There is no bench marking of course contents and institutional capability, identification and preparation of a list of trainers and experts at national, regional and sub-regional levels. 6. Training Needs Assessment for different stakeholders has not been undertaken.
B. Following are some of the general recommendations;
•
•
A dedicated division in MoRD for looking after the training needs of various development programmes of MoRD. Further, MoRD could identify eminent social workers, academics and policy makers as “National Fellow” and place them either in NIRD/SIRDs or Universities/ Social Science Institutes for strengthening the training and skill development of communities from the civil society and government. MGNREGA division of MoRD urgently needs to set up an ‘Expert Group’ to identify the training gaps and shortcomings for strengthening the implementation of Act. The ToR of the Expert group needs to cover NIRD and SIRDs as well as SIRDs are in most places are imparting mechanically and almost dysfunctionally without any input from latest research and analysis. The Expert group also needs to identify eminent institutes of national repute for placing key officials and staff for training and skill development.
•
For urgent need of ‘communitization of capacity building’, MoRD needs to declare people based rural development centres in Ralegaon Siddhi, MKKS in Vijaypura, SPS(MP), Vilasrao Salunkhe (Pani-baba)’s experiments in Purandhar block in Pune, Subhas Palekar’s Zero budget agriculture in Amaravati and various similar innovative experiments across the country as “National Centres for excellence for Community Learning’ for imparting training in rural development.
•
MoRD also needs to benefit from an innovative public and civil society partnership model in which voluntary organizations, foundations and social science research institutes, IITs, IIMs etc. provide continuous and comprehensive learning. CAPART needs to be made more proactive in “ communitization “ of training pedagogy, tools and course contents; CAPART could easily undertake the exercise of identifying leading, credible and innovative civil society organizations or voluntary organizations involved in the development of rural India. This can be done by the “National Standing Committee of EC members of CAPART.
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•
The whole net work of Nehru Yuvak Kendras which can be used for awareness generation, planning and training in MGNREGA remain stuck in some cosmetic works of youth development. This trend needs to be reversed by convergence between Nehru Yuvak Kendras and MoRD.
•
Based on visits and interactions with key officials and researchers at NIRD, SIRD (Rajasthan/ Bihar/ Guwahati) and KILA (Kerala), the Working Group recommends NIRD (Hyderabad) to undertake urgent reforms for restructuring the existing institutional and management processes . NIRD indeed could provide excellent logistic and coordination support and create congenial support systems for debate and discussion but it seriously lacks quality research environment. This will not happen unless NIRD is gradually reengineered for creative peer learning and given more academic freedom for introducing innovative course contents and teaching tools through new perspectives on participatory and inclusive rural development. For management reforms, NIRD could learn a lot from KILA model in Kerala. Given the vast resources and faculty available at its disposal, NIRD could easily transition into a full-fledged institution for imparting training to officials involved in the implementation of various flagships programs of rural development (MGNREGA, NRLM etc.) Since MoRD has already formed an Expert Group to consider reforms for NIRD (Hyderabad), the Working Group would prefer to wait for the report of the Expert Group.
•
The proposed chapter of NIRD at Jaipur needs to be declared a dedicated “National Institute of Rural Development” for fulfilling the goals of MGNREGA and NRLM (National Rural Livelihood Mission) by undertaking the tasks of research, impact analysis, training and advocacy services. Jaipur chapter of NIRD should ideally be designed as“ Policy Hub for Innovations(PHI)” in rural development in India.
•
As the exclusive focus on courses and programmes in various aspects of Rural Development and Management has been missing in the current architecture of university education in India, the Working Group recommends MoRD to urgently set up an “Expert group” to examine of the feasibility of incubating new courses and studies in the university system.
•
Overhauling of training ethos and contents: Most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including workers, GP functionaries, officers and officials at the block level consider NREGA as a wage employment programme. However, MGNREGA is now focused to be an effective intervention in contemporary development practice. To recast MGNREGA in the developmental canvas, we suggest that the important stakeholders of the programme be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and NREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation,
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social capital creation through mobilization, capability expansion of individuals and communities and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how NREGA is an intervention in contemporary development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through MGNREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up MGNREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development , social mobilization and participation. •
Four national level training Institutes in four regions: The Working Group feels the necessity of identifying four national level institutes in four regions of the country for organizing training and workshops on MGNREGS for DPCs, ADPCs, Zilla Parishad Presidents/chairmen, senior civil society members, Ombudsmen, senior journalists and other elected representatives like MPs and MLAs. Since NIRDs have their branches in Hyderabad, Guwahati, Patna and Jaipur (Upcoming), we feel that the Hyderabad branch can accommodate participants from Southern and Eastern states, Guwahati branch can accommodate participants from all the North eastern states, Jaipur branch can cater to participants from western regions and Patna branch can accommodate participants from northern and central states. However, NIRDs need to overhaul their infrastructure, course contents, and faculty competence. As Patna NIRD is hardly functional so efforts need to be taken up for revamping the existing architecture of NIRD.
•
Strengthening of SIRDs; SIRDs can conduct training programmes, workshops, brainstorming sessions on MGNREGS for other stake holders . However, they need to be strengthened in terms of physical infrastructure, faculty number and core competence. Their existing ETCs also need to be strengthened and more ETCs need to be established. Use of ICT like videoconferencing should be encouraged.
•
Preparation of Register of national level experts in MGNREGS training: A list of national level eminent subject experts on MGNREGS can be prepared by NIRDs/NREGS Cell of MORD and the same can be displayed in the website of these institutes/MORD along with the detailed contact addresses of them. Similar exercise can be done at the state and regional level by the SIRDs/NREGS cell of State Governments.
C: Following are some of the specific recommendations: 1. Need to expand the list of stakeholders for training:
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(a) Government Functionaries: DPCs, Additional DPCs, Programme Officers, Additional Programme officers, Police Officers, Officers of line departments like agriculture, horticulture, tourism, irrigation, soil conservation, forests , Assistant Engineers, junior engineers, block Panchayat secretary, secretaries of Gram Panchayat. (b) Elected Representatives and Members of PRIs : MPs, MLAs, Zilla Parishad chairman, Panchayat Samiti chairperson, Gram Panchayat heads like sarpanch, members of Panchayat Samiti/block Panchayat, Members of Gram Panchayat, Members of Gram Sabha. (c) Technical Staff working and would be working under NREGS : TA, Gramrojgar Sahayak, Accredited Engineers, Data Entry Operators and Accounts Assistants/Accountants, Mate etc. (d) Representatives of Civil Society: NGOs, Vigilance and Monitoring committee members, Self Help Groups, Neighbourhood Groups, social audit professionals. (e) Ombudsmen 2 Model Training Module for District Programme Coordinators (This is a model training module for DPCs. Same modules can be prepared for other stake holders in MGNREGA)
Objective
To sensitize the participants the relevance and potential of MGNREGA in development perspective in general and rural development perspective in particular.
To understand the requirements, components, processes of planning, implementation and monitoring of MGNREGS.
Expected Outcome
The training programme would enable the participants to
Contextualize MGNREGA in the current development theory and practice
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Understand the role of DPC in management of the programme both in its processes and outcomes.
Ensure convergence of development schemes, minds and skills
Handle MIS for effective data management and monitoring of MGNREGS
Understand the role, use and importance of ICT in asset management in NREGA
Appreciate the importance of NREGS in ensuring good governance
Understand the details of management of finance, people, programme processes and outcomes.
Content Details
1. MGNREGS as an effective intervention in contemporary development practice (a) Evolution of the concept of development as theory and practice from economic growth to sustainable development. Concepts and practices in capability expansion, sustainable development, participation, mobilisation and empowerment. (b) Evolution of economic system, agents of development and mechanism of resource allocation in the context of development theory and practice. (c) Linking these concepts and practices with rural development theory and practice. (d) Genesis and evolution of Rural Development models and practices in developing countries including India (e) MGNREGS as a contemporary rural development practice in Livelihood security. (f) Evolution and appraisal of wage employment programmes in India (g) MGNREGS from programme to Act
2. MGNREGS and its relevance for the state of -------
3. MGNREGS Process
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(a) Understanding the provisions of MGNREG Act, with respect to demand for work, job card availability, workers entitlements, institutions involvement in its planning, implementation and evaluation. (b) Preparation of scientific district perspective plan for NREGS, labour budgeting, demand forecasting in the light of the seasonality of jobs, cultural and social practices of the people etc. 4. Convergence of works and schemes in MGNREGS Identifying the works, schemes, departments , officers and officials for convergence and exploring the possibility for convergence in meetings of the district planning committees. 5. Role of DPC in management of the programme both in its processes and outcomes. (a) Duties and responsibilities of DPC under the act. (b) DPC and sound management practices with respect to planning, implementing and monitoring of NREGS processes and outcomes.
6. MIS and MGNREGS monitoring (a) Why data management in MGNREGS? (b) MIS and MGNREGS-An Overview (c) Areas of process monitoring and MIS (d) District level appraisal and monitoring mechanism.
7. Use of ICT in Asset Management in MGNREGS. (a) Importance of ICT in asset management (b) Potential of ICT use in asset management
8. Good Governance and MGNREGS (a) MGNREGS and Transparency (b) MGNREGS and Accountability (c ) MGNREGS and public vigilance
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(d) MGNREGS and Social Audit (e) MGNREGS and Ombudsman
9. Management of Finance and people (a) Funds Flow in MGNREGS (b) Sectoral utilization (c ) On line reporting (d) Deployment of people in MGNREGS (d) Reporting in MGNREGS-monthly and Annual
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CHAPTER8 CHAPTER8VII GOVERNANCE REFORMS FOR CAPACITY BUILDING BUILDING
Management Support Systems for MGNREGA
7.1 Anchoring at the National Level MGNREGA has assigned several responsibilities of steering and guiding the programme to the central government. The MGNREGA also assigns the following powers to the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) "(a) establish a central evaluation and monitoring system; (b) advise the Central Government on all matters concerning the implementation of this Act; (c) review the monitoring and redressal mechanism from time to time and recommend improvements required; (d) promote the widest possible dissemination of information about the Schemes made under this Act; (e) monitoring the implementation of this Act; (f) preparation of annual reports to be laid before Parliament by the Central Government on the implementation of this Act; (g) any other duty or function as may be assigned to it by the Central Government. (2) The Central Employment Guarantee Council shall have the power to undertake evaluation of the various Schemes made under this Act and for that purpose collect or cause to be collected statistics pertaining to the rural economy and the implementation of the Schemes." [Section 11 of MGNREGA] The Act also provides for establishment of similar State Employment Guarantee Councils in each state to oversee and monitor the MGNREGA implementation.
The Working Group's observations on human resources, capacity building and evaluation in different portions of this report indicate that there is need for a greater
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degree of cohesive effort across the board to make MGNREGA realize its true potential. While the provisions of the Operational Guidelines are more than adequate with regard to different aspects of MGNREGA implementation, they cannot realize their true potential until a proper organizational structure and business plan is in place and a clear sense of purpose13 and cohesion across the board is achieved in pushing this business plan. Such an organizational structure needs to be accountable, flexible, highly professional and open.
As the history of several rural development interventions in India have shown, the best pieces of legislation and the most well thought out scheme for betterment of the lives of the rural poor have tended to falter because of a failure to set systems in place which are critical. And this failure itself can be traced to some or the other stakeholder in the chain moving without the necessary commitment14. MGNREGA represents a set of constitutional obligations, which leave little room for slack in the delivery mechanism, since such a slack would mean legal entitlements being denied to the poorest. Thus a strong and proactive oversight mechanism is critical. We use the term proactive to suggest that rather than wait for grievances or violations to arise, the mechanism responds to ensure that the necessary pieces are in place to minimize the possibility of violations.
While Section 11 of the Act, cited above point to the powerful oversight functions of the Central Council, which is the apex body for MGNREGA, it has also been pointed out that: " . . . it is interesting to compare the facilities and structures that are available for NREGA at the centre with those of say, the Election Commission, the Census of India, or Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – other national programmes with a much smaller 13
“Purpose” here is used in the sense of Charles Heckscher's usage [see Charles Heckscher, “The Limits of Participatory Management”, Across the board, Nov-Dec 1995 and is distinct from “goals”, which often degenerate into quantitative targets or “vision” or “mission”, which are prone to becoming sweeping and large: “A purpose is something in the middle: a complex statement of the organization's challenges and objectives over a three to five year time frame. It usually can't hang on a wall, because it is far too complicated. The limited time frame keeps the purpose concrete, away from airy abstractions. But it is a long enough period to provide a challenge worth caring about”
14
For instance, with regard to ombudsmen, it has been observed by the Working Group that different state governments have shown varying commitments to the idea, with some perceiving this to be an additional “burden” on an overloaded system
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budget and mandate. The NREGA cell at the Ministry of Rural Development is a dwarf in comparison . . . "15 and that: “NREGA is a complex legislation with many different actors. The Central Government has wide powers to define the implementation framework of NREGA through Guidelines, Rules and other means (including amendments in the Schedules of the Act). The state governments are responsible for implementing state-specific “employment guarantee schemes” within that framework. And the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), especially the Gram Panchayats, are the main “implementing agencies” of NREGA works on the ground, though the Act also allows other implementing agencies such as Line Departments. In this operational maze, clear principles and guidelines are essential. This requires, in particular, close coordination between the Central and state governments.”16 In a detailed two-volume report submitted to the Prime Minister of India, based on intensive field surveys, the NCEUS recommends for MGNREGA that : “. . . a full fledged Employment Guarantee Mission (on the lines of health and education missions) should be created in order to provide adequate support structures for the Central and state governments. ”17
Indeed, for a national level programme such as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), whose budgetary outlay is about a quarter of that of the MGNREGA, a well structured implementational scheme has been envisioned with a national level mission governed by a proposed apex NRLM Council at the national level. Under the circumstances, it is unclear why a similar strengthening of the MGNREGA has progressed much more slowly, if at all.
15
Jean Dreze, Kartika Bhatia and Reetika Khera, Making NREGA Work, Unpublished Report for the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), 2009
16
Jean Dreze, Kartika Bhatia and Reetika Khera (op.cit.)
17
The Challenge of Employment in India : An Informal Economy Perspective: Volume I - Main Report (pg. 227) , NCEUS, 2009, New Delhi
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The Working Group believes that the largest employment programme in human history requires a dedicated anchoring structure at the national level to fulfill the mandate of the Act and to strengthen the functioning of the apex council, the CEGC.
The Working Group had intensive discussions on the form of such an anchoring structure, whether Mission, Authority, Directorate, or other. It was felt that the exact form of such a structure could emerge through wider debate but it would be worthwhile to spell out the mandate that such a structure should ideally fulfill. Two organizational forms may be considered for this structure: •
one favouring complete autonomy with the Chairperson of the Central Council and the key functionaries of the Technical Secretariat in-sourced from outside the normal channels
•
while full autonomy may be preferred, its constitutional and legal implications may take time to work out. Thus a hybrid structure may be adopted with the CEGC and Chairperson remaining as they are, and some key positions reserved for in-house personnel while others being insourced through external channels.
Since the CEGC is the apex Council responsible for MGNREGA and since the idea behind the anchoring structure is to strengthen the Act, the Working Group has preferred to use the term Technical Secretariat The idea of this anchoring structure can be seen to be an elaboration and enlargement of the scope of the Technical Secretariat proposed under Section 11 of the Central Council rules. It is felt by this Working Group that the Technical Secretariat would benefit by a clear definition of its responsibilities as well as provision for induction of the best professional talent in the country to provide leadership to its different functions.
Such a CMT will take the responsibility of overseeing the following most important functions to make NREGA effective: Human resources and Capacity Building
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Monitoring Information Technology Social Audit and Evaluation Grievance Redressal The Technical Secretariat should be a dedicated structure, headed by a Chief Executive Officer(CEO). Setting up of such a structure will also help to separate the functions of executing the programme from those of evaluation and grievance redressal, since as a matter of principle, the agency executing the programme should not be the one also assessing its own work. The Technical Secretariat is required also so that appropriate focus can be given in key areas such as deployment of IT and human resource development, without which NREGA will not realise its potential. All key positions of accountability should be filled in after a due high-level search and screen process, with the provision for enabling lateral entry of highly qualified and eminent professionals where needed. Serving government officers may also be identified and placed through such a screen process. The process should shortlist potential candidates from within the government or outside.
The Secretariat should have the following departments: Monitoring: Headed by a National Level Manager responsible for concurrent monitoring of work under NREGA and establishing and refining systems of monitoring the work under MGNREGA Evaluations and Social Audit: Mounting evaluations through a carefully selected panel of experts and consultants from across the country, ensuring that social audits are undertaken and monitoring the action taken on the findings of such social audits; Grievance Redressal: Headed by National Manager , the department will be a window for complaints made by wage-seekers, lay citizens, representatives of wageseekers, organizations working with wage-seekers or any other agency or institution wishing to bring to the notice of the CEGC any violation of the Act or its operational
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guidelines in any part of the country. The Ombudsmen throughout the country will work as the eyes, arms and legs CEGC. Information Technology Department: Also headed by a National Manager, who will report to the Mission Director this department's role will be to:
assess ICT needs, in terms of both hardware and software, for providing a proper ICT backbone for MGNREGA implementation and come up with a blueprint for effective ICT deployment for MGNREGA which caters to information needs vis a vis transparency, monitoring and grievance redressals
deploy the best possible expertise available in the country to advise it on ICT deployments
ensure that the ICT blueprint is deployed once it has been ratified by the CEGC
ensure ICT deployment across the country, conforming to the best standards anywhere in the world
ensure that states are complying with the ICT requirements of data returns and updation
ensure that latest developments in ICT which are potentially beneficial for use in MGNREGA implementation and monitoring are screened, piloted, developed further and disseminated
pro-actively set up a coordination mechanism with other major ICT-centred initiatives of the government such as the UIDAI
MGNREGA implementation personnel are trained in use of ICT
Human Resources Department: Also headed by a National Manager, who will report to the Mission Director, this department's primary responsibility will be • to work out standards for human resources recruited for NREGA implementation, • to work out recruitment processes, human resource policies, performance evaluation criteria and so on • to assess gaps, (including region-specific gaps) in human resource deployment and availability and to work out short-term responses and
75
medium-term and long-term mechanisms for ensuring a steady source of human resources for MGNREGA • to widely promote a gender-sensitive, pro-poor and pro-active work culture down the line • to work out a system of certification for human resources, which all implementation structures have to comply with, • to identify and set standards for identifying training institutions across the country who can discharge the responsibilities of capacity building for NREGA • to work out syllabi for training courses that NREGA personnel should go through, • to arrange for trainings for these personnel • to network with professional and technical institutions, Civil Society Organizations, subject matter specialists and experts to create the necessary human resource infrastructure for effective capacity building • to assess training material available, to ensure its wide dissemination across the country and to promote the production and dissemination of high quality resource material (print and electronic) for MGNREGA Each of these departments may induct and in-source professionals from across the country for their functions.
Each of these departments may also be steered by Standing or Empowered Committees set up by the CEGC, headed by a CEGC member and optionally inducting experts of impeccable integrity and standing.
7.2 Other Specific Recommendations at the National Level While the above structure may emerge after due deliberation, the Working Group also sees the need for some specific and immediate recommendations with a view to strengthening the oversight mechanism inherent in the constitution of the CEGC as the apex council, which have emerged from discussions with Central Council members.
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1. There is need to set in place a mechanism whereby the CEGC is informed about the action taken on the recommendations made by it. The CEGC may also be empowered to ask for such action taken information, not only from the Central Government but also from State Governments if and as the need arises. 2. Given a minimum number of CEGC members which may be deemed to constitute a quorum, desiring to convene a meeting of the CEGC and submitting this request in writing, the same should be convened. 3. With regard to Ombudsmen, it is important that the Ombudsmen also report to the CEGC or a Steering Committee thereof on the complaints received by her, the action taken by her and the action taken on her recommendations by the state government. This is important since, in the event of the SEGC or the state nodal department failing to Act, or failing to Act within a reasonable time-frame or in the best possible manner, the CEGC's power may be used to insist that action is taken. Without such backup it may not be practicable for the ombudsmen to discharge her duties in the best possible manner. 4. A system of national level ombudsmen may also be considered with sufficient oversight powers to create the necessary backup. These National Level Ombudsmen should be people of impeccable integrity with a record of the highest standards of public service and should be appointed transparently through a very high level search process. They should also be empowered to conduct suo-moto inquiries and reviews if they perceive the need to arise.
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7.3 Mission Mode at the State Level Currently, most state governments barring Rajasthan and AP as observed in our field visits, rely on adhoc administrative systems for implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA. State Employment Gurantee Council functions minimally and are mostly limited to giving approvals to administrative actions carried out by the Department of Rural Development or Department of Panchyati Raj as the case may be. Therefore, given the ‘polycentric nature” of the design and implementation of MGNREGA, governance reforms in the existing administrative arrangements for implementing at the state level are urgently needed. Bihar is actively pursuing this approach (refer to annexure on Bihar). The Society would be operated by a Governing Committee/Council (GC) which would be headed by Principal Secretary RD and
Commissioner, RD as member -secretary.
Commissioner Rural Development assumes the responsibility of ‘State Programme Coordinator’ for MGNREGA and would be assisted by a Directorate comprising subject specialists/experts and support staff. The other members of the GC could be secretaries from Planning, water resources, finance, labour, road, environment & forest. Two to three prominent members from the civil society especially involved in the implementation of Employment Gurantee programmes/Social Audit/ Rural Entrepreneurship could also be nominated to the GC for a policy feedback and interface with civil society. The proposed Society would function more of Executive arm of the ‘State Employment Gurantee Council’ and would oversee all administrative and technical issues arising out of the implementation of MGNREGA in the state. The Society needs to adopt Mission approach with observable outcomes for achieving the goals of MGNREGA. As the success of MGNREGA depends on the “institutionalized co-operation” from state governments, it is recommended to set up a dedicated structure which may take the form of an "Independent Society" under the Department of Rural Development or Panchyati Raj dedicated to the implementation and monitoring of MGRNEGA in the state.
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CHAPTER VIII CAPACITY BUILDING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NORTH EAST The Northeast The North Eastern Region of India includes the eight sister states of Arunachal, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and a recent entrant, Sikkim. It has a landmass of 2.62 lakh sq. km that covers 7.9 per cent of the total area of the country. The total population of 39 lakh (2001 census) accounts for 3.8 per cent of the country’s total population. About 70 per cent of the region is hilly, and the topography varies within each state. Mountains and hills cover most of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim and about half of Tripura, one-fifth of Assam and nine-tenth of Manipur.
The economy of the region reflects its
backwardness with 56 per cent of workers engaged in agriculture as per census 2001. The region is industrially very backward with the contribution of this sector being less than 3 per cent in all the states, except for Assam and Manipur where it is 12 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. The poverty level in the region is among the highest in the country with the percentage of population below poverty line in the states ranging from 36 to 29 per cent4, compared to the all India average of 26 per cent. The region is also characterized by low per- capita income, low capital formation, inadequate infrastructure facilities, geographical isolation and communication bottlenecks, and higher unemployment rate . The level of agriculture productivity is very low with a large section of the farmers, especially in the upland areas engaged in shifting cultivation. In both the periods i.e. 1980s and 1990s, the average growth in NSDP for the north eastern region as a whole, has been lower than the all India average. In 1990s the situation has even worsened. Whereas for the country as a whole, the average growth rate has marginally increased from 5.5 in 1980s to 5.8 in 1990s, for the north eastern region, it has decreased from 4.4 to 3.6 during the same
79
period. The situation has grossly deteriorated in Assam. Except for Arunachal and Tripura, in all other states, growth rates in NSDP have not exhibited any difference during the last 20 years. Inequality in the north eastern region as measured by the Gini
coefficient,
has
increased
for
the
period
from
1993-94
to
1999-
2000(Panda:2010). What worries one is the fact that this inequality has increased during this period in all the north-eastern states except Meghalaya. The fact that the primary sector contributes close to one third of the GSDP and in terms of employment to more than half of the workers, strengthens the belief that there is disguised unemployment and underemployment in the rural sector of the economy.
Thus, considering this high degree of underdevelopment manifested in poverty, inequality,
disguised
unemployment
and
underemployment,
environmental
exploitation, the necessity to initiate a programme like NREGS was all the more necessary in this region.
It has been more than four years that phase-I of NREGA have come in to effect in the region. Since this programme is comprehensive both in terms of its coverage and explicit and implicit objectives, and initial appraisal of its process of implementation and the extent, nature , productivity and sustainability of its outcome(Panda:2009), inter alia, brings up the issue of capacity deficiency at different levels as one of the limiting factors for the overall success of the programme; a comprehensive understanding of the capacity issues in MGNREGA in the North East is all the more important and pertinent.
Capacity Deficiency in MGNREGA in North East Deficiency in capacity is found in all the three levels i.e. (i) Individual stakeholders(workers, govt. officers and officials, PRI functionaries, functionaries of officials created under act in the absence of PRI system, neighbourhood functionaries etc.), (ii) community and (iii) institutions involved in implementation and monitoring of this programme. Often the deficiency in one of these stakeholders affects the other and vice-versa. For example, capacity deficiency in institutions
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leads to capacity deficiency in individual stakeholders and community and viceversa. Hence, in the North-East, there exists a low level circle of capacity deficiency in rural development programmes in general and MGNREGA in particular. These low capacity bases in these three levels act and react upon each other keeping the overall level of capacity in MGNREGA delivery in the region in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. To be specific these deficiencies manifest in the front of manpower availability, training institutions, capability of the institutions to undertake and impart training, training modules, institutional capacity to mobilize workers, PRIs and their functionaries, civil society, governance and leadership.
Manifestation of Capacity Deficiency: Some Facts Individual awareness about the programme details is not comprehensive. A Quick appraisal of NREGA in the state of Meghalaya undertaken by Panda in 2009 shows that 45% of the workers (stakeholder-I), 35% of the AEC and VEC Members (stakeholder-II), 40% of the Third party (stake holder-III) are not aware of the basic provisions of MGNREGA. This study also further highlights that (i) half of the workers surveyed in a study area did not specify their required demand of employment, (ii) Forty percent (40%) of the workers agreed to the fact that the job card was not issued to them within 15 days of their application, (iii) On an average 76.25 % of the workers opined that they did not get work with in 5 km range of their village. According to stakeholder II, (i) in 40% of the cases Gram Panchayat does not issue receipt of the application, (ii) 50% of the Vigilance and Monitoring Committee members are not be trained regarding NREGA and (iii) about 89% of the mates and 13% of Gram Rozgar Sewaks recruited have not undergone any formal training on NREGA (iv) in 15 percent of cases, works in progress are not being technically supervised regularly, (v)19 % of the work completed are not recorded in the Asset Register, (vi) Gram Rozgar Sewak is not available for each Village/Dorbar, (vii) payment to workers is not made trough banks and post offices, (viii) There is the absence of PRI institutions in some of the NE states like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
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Capacity Deficiency in Training: The visit of the working group to the North East and its interaction with various stakeholders(minutes of it are given in Appendix-) brought out the deficiency in training institutes, spread of these institutes, training modules in MGNREGA very clearly. NIRD-NERC which is located in Guwahati runs with only four regular faculties including its Director. It does not have enough in-campus residential facility to accommodate participants. In the absence of accomplished faculties in adequate numbers with appropriate physical infrastructure, senior functionaries in MGNREGA like state secretaries, DPCs, ADPCs are not interested to have their training undertaken there. Further, the course modules for senior functionaries in NREGA deal more with MGNREGA Process monitoring and management devoid of the required understanding of the philosophy and theory of rural development and the role of MGNREGA therein. SIRDs too suffer from same deficiency in faculty, supporting staff; concept ,management and understanding of the theory and practice of MGNREGA.
To overcome these deficiencies, we suggest strengthening, streamlining and mainstreaming the faculty strength, infrastructure and training modules respectively of NIRD-NERC, Guwahati and all the SIRDs in the region. Large states like Arunachal Pradesh should open more extension centres of SIRDs in three different regions of the state. We also suggest better networking of these SIRDs with their extension centres and with NIRD Guwahati through video conferencing etc. Power cut is a problem in interior regions of North East. These remotely located power deficient SIRDs and their extension centres must be equipped with alternative sources of power like solar power and DG Sets. The expenditure undertaken on this head can be met from the administrative cost of the rural developmental programmes including MGNREGA. Most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including workers, GP functionaries, officers and officials at the block level do not realize that MGNREGA is meant to be an effective process of development but not an end in itself in the form of wage
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employment. To make it happen, we suggest that these important stakeholders of the programme particularly the programme officers (BDOs) be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and NREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how MGNREGA is an intervention in development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through MGNREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development in the context of the North East. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up MGNREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development and participation in the region.
Capacity Deficiency in Mobilisation of Workers In the NE Region, there is absence of institutions like strong civil society or grass root NGOs to effectively mobilize and empower workers. However, the SHG movement is slowly but steadily gaining ground. Hence we suggest better coordination between SGSY and NREGA and explore the SHG route of mobilising workers in NREGA.
Capacity Building and Social Audit Concept of social audit is new to some parts of the people of the North East and often runs in to problems because of age old cultural practices and community ethos in the north eastern region. However, as social audit is mandatory in MGNREGA, we suggest social audit workshops to be preceded social audit exercise and be undertaken at village, block and district levels to reassure the people that it is not a fault finding system rather a system of transparency, certification and inclusion. Once the acceptability of social audit been established, initially this exercise can be undertaken by reputed organisations like MKSS and afterwards can be passed on to regional organisations of credibility, import and expertise.
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Integration of substitute Institutions of PRI with indigenous/traditional institutions and their capability Expansion. The North Eastern region does not have PRIs in place in many NER sates like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. They have their indigenous/traditional institutions like the Durbar and Gaon Budha System. Bringing in PRI-proxies by legislation and integrating them with the traditional institutions and power structure in the context of NREGA is a bigger challenge. The substitute of PRI framework that has been introduced in states like of Meghalaya through MREGS is in its infancy. The members of the AEC(Area Employment Council)
and VECs(Village
Employment Council) need to be continuously provided trainings on the necessity, practices, procedures, objectives and achievements of PRI institutions and their relevance for a movement and programme like NREGS. A short course “Rural Development and MGNREGA” needs to be tailor-made for this category of stakeholders that should incorporate elements and practices on democratic decentralization, rural development and NREGA.
Capacity Building for Financial Inclusion Financial inclusion is limited because of thin spread of banks/post offices. The topography and cultural practices of people also contribute to it. To overcome the topographical compulsions, we suggest the introduction of bike-cum-barefoot satellite banking system by the postal department/banks. The postal department is undertaking innovative expansion in its activities. We find that in states like Meghalaya home delivery of letters/documents are not undertaken in remote rural areas. This is the right time that a model like bike-cum- barefoot satellite banking (with biometric cards) with postal article delivery can be combined by the postal department and the job can be undertaken by the modern postman. This delivery, collection of postal articles along with banking can be undertaken in remote areas twice in a week. Further, the postal department being a government organisation has the trust of the people, unlike other small private players. Capacity Building in Awareness and Dissemination:
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One of the reasons for poor awareness about MGNREGA in North East particularly with workers is because of non-availability or limited availability of literature on MGNREGA in local languages because of limited and or poor translation in to local languages. We suggest here that SIRDs of respective states, can be given a project to identify the major languages of their states, collaborate with the local linguistic departments of respective universities and can get efficient translation done for dissemination of MGNREGA material. Absence of technical people to be employed as technical assistants: To overcome the problem of shortage of technical Assistant, in addition to having a HR policy in place in MGNREGA and increasing remuneration associated with this post, the authorities can recruit local youths with class XII pass certificates and train them for two/three months by the government engineers of the district/block/divisions and then employ them for measurement and technical supervision of NREGA works. Capacity Building and Ombudsman Many of the NER States except Assam and Tripura, do not find enough candidates for the position of Ombudsman. Where ever, they are available, the list is heavy with retired bureaucrats only. To overcome this problem, to make the selection inclusive and to strengthen this institution, the required 20 years experience may be reduced to 15 years so that we get candidates from the civil society, as in many states civil society is of recent origin including separation of judiciary from executive. Capacity building and Convergence Existence of a pervasive culture of contractor raj in the North East is basically exploitative on man and environment. This institution prevents convergence in NREGA as it fears its extinction if MGNREGA processes are bench marked for other departments and schemes. To realize the full potential of MGNREGA as a process of rural development, convergence of schemes, skills, and minds is a necessity. Ideally, we suggest the critical level at which the convergence should happen is the block. The head of the PRI at the block and the BDO are the institutions who command the respect of the
85
other line officers. Although we feel that the BDOs are overburdened with other works, but considering MGNREGA to be central to rural development and the centrality of the institution of BDO in the block hierarchy, it is the best suited institution to promote convergence through commanding the services of other line officers. Any other separate institution created for MGNREGA implementation at the block level may not command the respect as that of the BDO. Once the PRI institutions are strengthened, and become the central agency of rural development, the role of the BDO can be taken over by the PRI head at the block level. Till it happens, we suggest the strengthening of the institution of BDO in line with the model of the deputy commissioner at the district level with the creation of an institution of APO (Additional Programme Officer) who would be assisting the BDO in day to day activities in MGNREGA.
Capacity Building and Planning and Execution of MGNREGA work: The State Employment Guarantee Councils should be strengthened in line with the Central Employment Guarantee Council at the centre. To do so, the states in the region should induct men of integrity, capability, expertise in to the council who are apolitical in nature. Once this is done, the council should have its secretariat that can undertake the planning and monitoring work of MGNREGA by commissioning to undertake
effective demand forecasting mechanism that takes in to account
seasonality in jobs as seasonality in employment is an important issue in MGNREGA in this part of the country. MGNREGA Help Line No state in the region has a dedicated MGNREGA 24*7 help line. This should be immediately taken up and activated. In Passing The greatest asset of the NER region is its community centric living system in the rural areas particularly in the upland Hill Areas. This arrangement reduces information asymmetry and moral hazard in the implementation of developmental schemes making the cost, conflict and time-line of implementation of the programme significantly reduced. On the other hand the biggest challenge to implementation of MGNREGA is the typical cost, time and struggle associated with the geography and
86
topography related factors. This brings us to the necessity of the use of innovative and appropriate modern technology in the form ICT, GPS etc. in reaching out to the tribal people. Let us maximize the impact of the capacity multiplier in MGNREGA in this region by adopting the required modern technology with a mindset that is not exploitative on men and material and free of rent seeking.
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Chapter IX
Conclusion: A New Era of Governance for MGNREGA! Therefore, while we emphasise on governance, innovations, accountability and equity as key principles for new regime of ‘capacity building’, we also like to underline that MGNREGA needs to increasingly rely more on public-private partnership, better interorganizational processes, information technology, performance oriented incentive structures for human resources, more transparency in the social audit procedures, building quality human capital and supply bottom-up accountability to the public works. Emphasizing collaboration and empowerment rather than hierarchy and control, we focus on more proactive, transparent, equitous mechanisms of governance between various agencies located at the centre, state and panchayats. By suggesting a ‘Mission Mode’ implementation system for states, we also recommend taking measures for making states as ‘stakeholders’ in the key capacity building areas for deepening ‘institutionalized trust and reciprocity’ between the Center and States for effective implementation and monitoring. Unless state governments, district administrations and Panchyati raj institutions develop long term stakes, the implementation of MGNREGA would continue to be suffering from distortions and deficits. There are those who marvel at the extent, depth and significance of MGNREGA, and there are also those who see it as fragile and inadequate in meeting the demands of durable human security and sustainable development. On balance, both optimists and cynics would agree that MGNREGA reveals more than it conceals about securing durable basis for livelihood security, transforming the lives of millions of poor and the rising participatory forms of democratic governance at multiple, overlapping social environments in the Indian Society. We are sure that with new governance reforms in place and innovative capacity building support systems available at all levels of implementation from the National to Gram Sabha level, MGNREGA has the potential to usher in what Jawaharlal Nehru evocatively called “tryst with destiny”, a destiny in which poor become ‘game changers”!
FINAL REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON
CAPACITY BUILDING VOLUME 1: MAIN REPORT
CENTRAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE COUNCIL
MEMBERS OF THE WORKING GROUP Ashwani Kumar (Member, Central Council) ----Chairman Pramathesh Ambasta (SPS, MP) --------------------Member Ved Arya (SRIJAN, Delhi) -----------------------------Member Dr. Bhagirathi Panda (NEHU, Shillong) ----------—Member Prof. S.Narayan (Institute of Social Studies, Delhi) ---- Member Mr. P.K. Kesavan, Director, MoPR (GoI)------Member Mr. SK Singh, JS, Department of Rural Development, (GoB)--Member Mr. Badrinarayan, Add. Commissioner, MGNREGA (Govt. of Rajasthan)--Member
16 AUGUST 2010
Acknowledgement At the outset, the Working Group thanks Dr. CP Joshi, Hon’ble Minister RD (GoI) for initiating the process of governance reforms for MGNREGA. The Working Group is thankful to Dr Mihir Shah, Member Planning Commission, Shri BK Sinha, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, Shri MMP Sinha, IAS, Secretary, MoPR and Ms. Amita Sharma, IAS, Joint Secretary (MGNREGA), Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India for their guidance and unstinted support. The Working Groups places its special thanks to Shri Mathew C. Kunnumkal, IAS, Director General and Dr MV Rao, IAS, Registrar & Director (Administration) of National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad for their logistic and coordination support. We also place on record the support of Shri K. Raju, IAS, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, Shri T Vijai Kumar, IAS, Joint Secretary, NRLM, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, Shri Rajashekhar, Chief Executive Officer, APSERP, Hyderabad, Shri Phani Kumar, Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development, Hyderabad, Shri SM Vijayanand, IAS, Principal Secretary, Local Self Government, Govt. of Kerala, Shri Santhosh Mathew, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Bihar, Mr. Vijay Prakash, IAS, Secretary , Planning, Govt. of Bihar, Shri R Parasuram, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Government of Madhya Pradesh, Shri Shiv Shekhar Shukla, CEO, SREGS, Madhya Pradesh, Shri C S Rajan, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Government of Rajasthan, Mr. Tanmay Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Rural Development and Commissioner, MGNREGA, Govt. of Rajasthan, Shri Arun Kumar, IAS, Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Assam, Ms. Swahil, IAS, Additional Commissioner, MGNREGA(Chhattisgarh) and Mr. Brahma Dutt Tiwari, SDO, Sohara district. and Collectors and District Magistrates of Jehanabad, Gaya, Khagria districts in Bihar. The Working Group also thanks Prof. Vinay Singh, Director, NIRD-NERC(Guwahati) and Prof. Ramakanthan, Director, Kerala Institute of Local Administration,(KILA) Thrissur, Kerala, Prof.Hemanth Rao, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, Prof. G. Nagraj of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Dr Jayashankar, IRS, Additional Director, DTA, Nagpur, Shri Prashuram Roy, CFES, New Delhi, Achut Das, Director Agramgamee, Kashipur, Orissa for their support and knowledge sharing The Working Group appreciates continuous logistic support received from Dr. Rajani Kant, NIRD ( Logistic Coordinator for the working group) and also thank Prof. K. Hanumantha Rao, Professor & Head, Centre for Wage Employment and Poverty Alleviation, NIRD, Ms. P. Leelavathi, Visiting Fellow (CWEPA), NIRD, Dr Joseph Abraham, Mr. David Brenyard, Consultants (CWEPA), Mr K. Sudhir Kumar, Stenographer (CESD) and Ms. B. Prasanna, Electronic and Data Processing Assistant (CWEPA) of National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad. We, in the end, are grateful to labourers for their continuing hope in MGNREGA! Chairperson and Members 2
3
Index Preface
1
Executive Summary
2
1
Introduction
17
2
Human Resource Development Reforms
22
3
Capacity Building for MGNREGA
28
4
A New Cyber Structure for MGNREGA
45
5
Strengthening Research and Evaluation Systems for MGNREGA
57
6
Capacity Building Reforms for Training
61
7
Governance Reforms for Capacity Building
68
8
Capacity Building Recommendations for North East
77
9
Conclusion: A New Era of Governance for MGNREGA!
86
ANNEXURES
4
PREFACE The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) notified on 7th September, 2005, aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour. On 2 February 2006, Prime Minster Dr. Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi travelled to Bandlapalli village in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh to launch the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’ (NREGS) as the most radical and largest plan of public employment, poverty reduction and rural development in the human history. From 200 districts, the plan has now been extended to cover all of rural India. The guarantee of 100 days of unskilled works now extends to more than 5.8 crore households in 2009-10, has generated 777 crore personday since 2006, covers now about 79 lakh work projects and it has also led to opening of about 9.19 crore bank/post office accounts, a rare feat in the history of financial inclusion of poor in the socio- economic architecture in India. First of its kind, nationally and internationally, MGNREGA with its rights-based framework and focus on creation of ‘durable assets’, and propelled by proactive disclosures rules of right to information, has the potential to address the challenges of rural unemployment, food security and regenerate the village economy in India. MGNREGA’s most significant impact has been on the Minimum Wages Act as awareness about minimum wages has increased considerably and the notified minimum wages rates have gone up especially after the Government of India decided to provide ‘ a real wage of Rs 100 a day as an entitlements” under MGNREGA”, (Ref to FM’s budget speech 2009). It is also radical in the sense that it ensures rural labourers to have a legal entitlement not only to work on demand but also to minimum wages and in case of non-availability of work, the poor labourer is entitled to unemployment allowance. Similarly, the Act by emphasizing lateral public accountability systems like social audits, and proactive disclosure of information has internalized the spirit of transparency and accountability enshrined in the Right to information Act. Centrality of the Panchayati Raj Institutions in the implementation of MGNREGA has the potential to institutionalize people’s power at the grassroots and radically transform governance in rural areas. The government has also taken a giant leap by owning up the responsibility of providing complete fiscal resources and administrative mechanisms for implementing MGNREGA. All these call for innovating new governance structures, mainstreaming existing service delivery mechanisms, and re-designing more effective means of public monitoring for successful expansion and consolidation of MGNREGA. This indeed requires a paradigm shift in the way ‘capacity building’ has been conceptualized and mainstreamed in the implementation of MGNREGA.
1
Executive Summary Working Group on Capacity Building for MGNREGA MGNREGA with its rights-based framework and focus on creation of ‘durable assets’, has the potential to address the challenges of rural unemployment, food security and regenerate the village economy in India. In order to realize the goals that MGNREGA has set out for itself, there need to be first and foremost human capacities. The capabilities of these human capacities need to be developed so that they are able to undertake the responsibility mandated to them. Human capacities and capabilities further need to be backed by proper supporting institutions, which act as decision support systems, assisting in concurrent monitoring of outcomes and better management of the schemes initiated under MGNREGA. The Working Group proposes to define capacity building not as ordinary shortage of staff and lack of training facilities but as the dynamic process of developing, strengthening and institutionalizing the ‘rules of game’, norms, standard operating procedures, skills, abilities, and resources that organizations, communities and individuals need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fast-changing world of policy implementation.
Capacity building, broadly speaking, has two major aspects; for organizations, it relates to whole gamut of governance, administration (including human resources, financial management, and legal matters), business processes, program development, evaluation, and policy changes for innovation. For individuals, capacity building refers to excellence in individual performance, leadership development, socializing managerial values, technical skills, training opportunities, organizing abilities, and other areas of personal and professional development that includes sensitivity to values of equity, participation and inclusion. Thus, individual empowerment eventually needs to result in the ‘communitization of capacities’ especially marginalized and socially excluded groups in the society.
Issues. The Working group found the following issues bedeviling the implementation of MGNREGA with special reference to the capacity building aspects.
2
1. Inadequate Coordination among horizontal and vertical tiers of the government at various levels. Bedevilled by usual principal-agent conflicts, various institutional structures are not working in tandem and District Collectors (DPC) and Program Officers are still struggling with conflicting demands of vertical and horizontal coordination across departments and different tiers of government especially Panchayati Raj in the implementation of MGNREGA. For instance, Maharashtra has not suffered not only from lack of social mobilization of agricultural labourers and work site management issues but also from the usual bureaucratic turf wars and coordination conflicts between Chief Executive Officers of Zila Parishad and Collectors. 2. Poorly Crafted Administrative Systems. Some governments, for example, Bihar, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, continue to suffer from ‘deficits’ of poorly crafted and inadequate administrative and management systems at all levels. The innovation of a separate ‘MGNREGA cell’ has not yet produced desired outcomes and contracting out of support services in the states has been mostly inefficient and suboptimal in the absence of a coherent policy (Refer to Annexure on Chhattisgarh). The indifference of states towards Human development issues is writ large as other than Chhattisgarh, states failed to respond to the detailed questionnaire of the working group. 3. Shortage of Professionals and Training Facilities. Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks not only note shortage of dedicated personnel, poor training facilities and lack of community participation. Bogged down by outdated models of pedagogy and usual bureaucratic inertia NIRD and SIRDs have not been able to bridge the demand-supply gap in training needs of MGNREGA staff. 4. Ad Hoc Appointments of Professional Staff, Inadequate Compensation and Turnover. Unwittingly or otherwise, the government incentivized ad hoc appointments of low quality staff in large numbers, with every RD secretary and district collector somehow scrambling to recruit whoever s/he could get in the local job market. Many states suffer from high staff turnover. The process failed to take into account the fact that the Indian job market for professionals has become open and nationalized and salary expectations are to be calibrated to the demand-supply phenomenon. 5. Dissatisfaction among Contract Staff. We find evidence of growing dissatisfaction of the staff especially those ‘contract staff’ with regard to poor working conditions and arbitrary contract appointment policies of various state governments. Except AP, no state government has yet formulated a clearly articulated Human Resource Development policy. 6. Failed experiments of social mobilization such as “Gaon Sathi” in Orissa and the idea of providing ‘uniform’ for mates and Rozgar Sevaks in Jharkhand, a state battling against ‘uniformed and un-uniformed’ Maoist rebels. At the same time there is acceptance in some states that SHGs be mobilized. 7. Lack of Strong Governance System at the National and State Level. The current system is mired into departmental rules and functioning style and 3
doesn’t have the strong management teams that can function autonomously to support the mission mode that is needed to realize the true objectives of MGNREGA. 8. Lack of Dedicated Pro-active Teams of professionals at the Cutting Edge. Barring a couple of states such as AP and Rajasthan, the implementation structure stops at the block level, relying as it does on Panchayats whose implementation capacities vary widely across states and districts. Thus often the system is in reactive and fire fighting mode rather than in a pro-active mode with adequate capacities to plan ahead and to implement these plans well. 9. There is a huge gap in training system, characterized by the following: (a) Training institutions has very little practical experience of doing what they are training in and have very little touch with the intricacies of ground-level realities, implementation and social engineering; (b) Training institutions are located at a geographical distance, far removed from where the actual development intervention is scheduled to take place; (c) These institutes are run by personnel who speak a language which is largely incomprehensible to the people and whose attitude is didactic rather than dialogic, and who seem to lack the passion for the work which their training will enable; and (d) There is little follow-up in the field to ensure that the benefits of training are materialized at the field-level for which it was meant; and (e) there is near absence of any kind of role assigned to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in this crucial area. 10. There is little in-house capacity to undertake evaluation and assessment of MGNREGA on a continuous and comprehensive basis; PIN (professional Institutional network) of MoRD is basically a network for post facto analysis and run mostly by bureaucratic fiats rather than experts and professionals. As a result of this, continuous policy analysis and feedback for course correction in the policy is often lacking. As states have not yet developed any robust mechanism of evaluation or assessment, the MIS of MoRD remains the only source of public scrutiny of the implementation of MGRNEGA; we are aware that MIS suffers from reporting discrepancy between states and the Center. So establishing an evaluation system becomes urgent. 11. Capacity Deficiency in MGNREGA in North East. Deficiency in capacity is found in all the three levels i.e. (i) Individual stakeholders(workers, govt. officers and officials, PRI functionaries, functionaries of officials created under act in the absence of PRI system, neighborhood functionaries etc.), (ii) community and (iii) institutions involved in implementation and monitoring of this programme. Often the deficiency in one of these stakeholders affects the other and vice-versa. For example, capacity deficiency in institutions leads to capacity deficiency in individual stakeholders and community and vice-versa. Hence, in the North-East, there exists a high level of capacity deficiency in rural development programmes in general and MGNREGA in particular. These low capacity bases in these three levels act and react upon each other keeping the overall level of capacity in MGNREGA delivery in the region in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. To be specific these deficiencies 4
manifest in the front of manpower availability, training institutions, capability of the institutions to undertake and impart training, training modules, institutional capacity to mobilize workers, PRIs and their functionaries, civil society, governance and leadership.
Recommendations
Working Group’s recommendations are as follows in brief:
1. The term “Administrative Expenses’ needs to be replaced by “Capacity Building” Expenses. a. Revamping Technical Secretariat with reengineering of management processes and administrative systems at the National Level; A new era of professional and citizen centric governance needs to begin in the Technical Secretariat in which professional support could be taken from senior development professionals and experts for providing support in the key areas of implementation as mentioned in the section 11 of the Act. This could be done through deputation, secondment and lateral entry from public, private and voluntary sector in a transparent manner with clearly defined job profiles and terms. For improving the management of human resources, ensuring effective performance and providing responsive service, the Technical Secretariat needs to consider reorganizing its existing management system along key functions such as grievance redressal, human resources, Information technology, monitoring, evaluation and social audit. In short, reorganization and expansion of technical Secretariat is urgently required to maintain the integrity and accountability of the government in the program Each unit or section in the Technical Secretariat needs to be reconfigured in terms of clearly delineated roles, functions, and outcomes. 2. Independent Society at the State level. It is recommended to set up an "Independent Society" with Chief Minister as Chair and Rural Development Minister as Deputy Chair, and Principal Secretary RD as member -secretary within the nodal agency of department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Bihar is actively pursuing this approach (refer to appendix on Bihar). The Society would be operated by a Governing Committee/Council (GC) and present Commissioner (NREGA) would be the CEO or ‘State Programme Coordinator’ assuming full responsibility for implementing MGNREGA, 5
assisted by a Directorate comprising subject specialists/experts and support staff. The other members of the GC could be secretaries from Planning, water resources, finance, labour, road, environment & forest. Two to three prominent members from the civil society especially involved in the implementation of Employment Guarantee programmes/Social Audit/ Rural Entrepreneurship could also be nominated to the GC for a policy advice , feedback and interface with civil society. 3. MGNREGA Spearhead Team (NST) at the Cutting Edge of Implementation. This would be called “Program Facilitation Team (PFT) A very strong fulltime spearhead team is needed at the sub-block level, which can easily reach out to the poor and wage seekers on a daily basis and mobilize and empower, them to make demands on the system for realizations of their rights;. a. Such a dedicated PFT will help prepare an annual micro-plan for each gram panchayat resulting in shelf of works and annual budget estimates (material and labour budget both). The PFT will train Gram Panchayat representatives and functionaries and work with them on all aspects such as implementation, asset verification, measurement and payment, and monitoring and evaluation, MIS maintenance, and social audit. b. NST PFT will compose of three members including the team leader to perform the following functions: (i) Social mobilization and awareness raising about their rights (reaching out potential job seekers, through SHGs or otherwise), (ii) Surveying, planning and budgeting of individual works apart from infrastructure and rehabilitation of common property resources such as pastures tanks, rivers and streams, canals; (iii) monitoring and measurement; and (iv) payment, accounts and MIS keeping. At least one person needs to be from IT background. 4. Village Development Cluster. NST PFT will reach to a population about a third of a block, or about 30 villages, and in terms of geographical area a maximum of 15,000 hectare. This aligns with the recommendations of the WG on Planning and Execution which also defines the village development cluster. Thus, there would be, in most cases, three NS PFTs in a block each led by a NST PFT team leader and reporting to the Program Officer at the block level. 5. Full Involvement of Institutions of the Poor such as SHGs and Federations. WG makes a strong recommendation of ensuring full involvement of women self help groups in micro-planning, monitoring, as well as in social audit exercises. MP government has shown willingness to look at this idea.
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6. Harnessing NGO Capacities in Mobilisation, Micro Planning, Building PRI capacity, and Support in Implementation. Looking to the proposals of MP and Rajasthan governments, roles for NGOs could be worked out as per their core competence and track record of implementation. MP Government has identified micro-planning as well as implementation roles while they train and support the PRIs in works related to community ponds, roads and wells. With active involvement of CAPART, the role of NGOs in the capacity building for MGNREGA could be reconceptualized and made an integral part of the implementation. This also aligns with the Ministry’s proposal of Lok Sewak and the original directive to involve reputed NGOs. Section 4.6 elaborates the role of NGOs as Lok Sewaks further and suggests allocation of 6 per cent of the expenditure for their effort. 7. Urgent HR related reforms;(a) Working group strongly recommends formulation of a comprehensive HR policy for contract staff in each state that inter alia have the features such as specification of their salary in scales and grades, annual increments, leaves, transfer norms, travel allowances, cell phone allowance, lap top allowance, and grievance redressal(b) States should adopt a scientific and unbiased process in recruitment and selection of professionals to get the best out of the national pool. Methodology must eliminate biases in selection, especially over-reliance on interviews. It should include tests not just for cognitive ability (Intelligence Quotient tests) but tests for attitudes such as ability to work in teams, empathy with the poor in the villages and achievement motivation. Such recruitments could be outsourced to credible agencies, backed by administrative and political support as has been done in number of states (livelihoods projects) such as Bihar and Tamil Nadu. A four-step process has been laid out in the main text. 8. We strongly recommend that a similar system of recruitment and selection is designed and implemented for Gram Rozgar Sahayak or Field Assistant. 9. Ensuring Accountability through Performance Management System. Once recruited often the question of accountability of contract staff is raised. WG recommends a performance management system with 360 degree evaluation system to be done in the field situations and linking salary and non monetary awards to performance grade. It has been done successfully by a livelihoods project in Tamil Nadu that works in 15 districts (VKP). 10. Human Resource Policy for Contract Staff.
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11. Organizational Structure for Training needs to be set up to meet the needs arising out of MGNREGA implementation. Secondly CSOs could play a critical role here, since many have done a very good work across the country in enabling wage seekers and village communities to access their entitlements under MGNREGA and since CSOs have also had a long history of mobilization, capacity building and support to village communities. Accordingly, WG makes the following recommendations: a. At the national level, a National MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (NMTSO) needs to be created to anchor the entire training effort for MGNREGA. It would draw upon the best resources across the country and pool them to create hubs in each state and district of the country. In terms of roles, it will (a) act as a coordinating and anchoring agency between different state level resource centres; (b) help to define and refine training policy at both state and national levels and make training needs assessments; (c) act as a clearing house for training material and resources and as a nodal centre actively involved in development and dissemination of training material, methods and resources; and (d) identify and mobilize institutions which can play the role of training institutions for MGNREGA across the country. More details are available in the main text. b. At the state level, a State MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (SMTSO) needs to be set up to oversee the training functions throughout the state. This should actually be a Consortium of carefully selected CSOs, available professional and technical institutions with practical experience of planning, who will act as Anchor Organizations (AOs), anchoring the training effort at the state level and creating master trainers and master trainer organizations at the district level. The purpose of this state level consortium will be to create District MGNREGA Training and Support Organizations (DMTSO) which are master trainer and support organizations at the district level for the purposes of MGNREGA planning, implementation and mobilization for entitlements. c. At the district level, there is need to set up a District MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (DMTSO). This is a master trainer organization which imparts training to block and sub-block implementation teams. The DMTSO may be formed by the state 8
government by inducting full-time dedicated resource persons who will act as master trainers for MGNREGA. The DMTSO will also provide support to Project Implementation Agencies under MGNREGA. These would be trained by Anchor Organisations, where necessary. 12. In terms of curriculum for field staff training, a 20-day Foundation Course may be visualized, followed by another 20-day follow-up module. Otherwise a more rigorous 30-day Foundation Course may be followed up by a 20-day refresher module. An evaluation of the performance of the trainees is a must. This could take the form of a course-end examination as well as concurrent review of trainees on their attitude, skills and behaviour. Both could lead to course-end grades. Certificates clearly stating that the team members have been trained to act as Master Trainers at the district level will be awarded by the SMTSO, mentioning the course-end grades attained, in order to maintain quality of trainers and in the interest of transparency. 13. Costs and collaboration with RUDSETI. It is estimated that provisioning for such a training structure down the line will come to less than 1% of the MGNREGA budget. This cost is expected to decline after the initial years since the more critical handholding requirements will be in the first and second years. It is recommended therefore that the Operational Guidelines be suitably modified to cater for such expenditure. Where CSOs are inducted for the task of training DMTSOs or play the role of DMTSOs, their training and staff expenses should also be taken care of. Possibilities of convergence with RUDSETI type institutions should be explored in terms of infrastructure and human resources for training. 14. There are quality issues in selection of CSOs and the main text gives detailed process and criteria so that genuine, reputed ones are only selected. 15. Harnessing IT systems to monitor and to redress grievances. IT system could (a) speedily process data, (b) enable availability of data nearly concurrently with its online updation/entry through networks, and (c) break down artificial barriers of geography, boundaries etc. to flow of information (present in paper systems). These are key to engendering transparency and together make for contributions in governance. Assuming better connectivity backbones and hardware, WG recommends an Online Real Time Work Demand System where demand could be generated on Mobile Phone by a potential job seeker. Further, if MGNREGA correspondents with a handlheld or a computer are available even within the perimeter of the cluster or the block, 9
the application can be made online. WG recommends Online Real Time Grievance Redressal on similar lines. 16. Real Time Online Muster Rolls, Work Attendance and Measurements. A system can be visualized whereby handhelds are issued to field workers under MGNREGA, and muster rolls are directly updated online to the statelevel servers by biometric identification of the workers who are present on site. Such an immediate updation will go a long way in aiding concurrent monitoring. In fact, the paper muster roll can be a print out of the online muster. Fitted with GPS and webcam facilities, the system should further aid in verification of the work being done on the site at which is reportedly being done. It seems that this has also already been piloted in different states by the MoRD. The results of this pilot should be made public and appropriate policies framed on the feedback 17. Biometrics and UID-Enabled IT Application Layer for MGNREGA thus integrating with UID. Since UID is going to be the identity proving mechanism in the not-too-distant future, its relationship with any application layer in the social sector becomes critical and synergistic. Critical because (1) any nonUID based authentication architecture potentially faces the problem of nonconformance and redundancy in the not-too-distant future; and (2) if the MGNREGA IT architecture is not sufficiently prepared for the backend authentication proposed by the UID, there will be problems. Synergistic because the sort of connectivity backbone that is required to make UID authentication foolproof will also benefit MGNREGA. 18. It is this Working Group's recommendation that a coordination mechanism between MGNREGA and UID is pro-actively worked out by MoRD. It is on the basis of this understanding that a clear IT plan to be rolled out should be made so that MGNREGA has strategically positioned itself to maximize the wage-seeker's benefits. 19. We propose using Banking Correspondent model for enhancing capacity for delivery of wage payments. Despite its various problems, everyone (including the villagers themselves) is agreed that payment through bank transfers is a good thing and must stay. Its basic premises of separating those in-charge of work execution from those in-charge of payments and doing away with the handling of cash is fundamentally sound. In each village, Banks place a Customer Service Provider (CSP) identified by the banker equipped with a smart card reader networked to the bank server. Each beneficiary is 10
given a bank account after biometric authentication by the bank. All disbursements are credited electronically to the accounts of the beneficiaries. Banks arrange cash to the CSP using a Business Correspondent (BC). The MIS showing disbursement is available online. A printer may give out details of the transaction as a paper record. 20. ICT/GIS Enabled Asset Management System( AMS). Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group recommends setting up ICT/GIS enabled Assets Management System for MGNREGA. A Public –Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. The district administration with the help of ICT enabled Bharat Nirman ‘Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras ‘(RGSKs) at the panchayat and block levels would uplink the AMS to NREGA division of MoRD. 21. Strengthening Policy Evaluation and Research Systems (PERS) For MGNREGA. As the implementation of MGNREGA has entered its fifth year in a row, the Working Group recommends setting up PERS as a continuous policy evaluation and research think tank for enhancing the capacity of MoRD in its effective and efficient implementation of NREGA by a. developing innovative participatory approaches and syncretic evidence based methodologies for impact analysis, b. anticipating policy research needs of key stakeholders and responding to specific policy analysis requests in the areas of innovation, convergence and capacity building on all current and emerging issues in MGNREGA, c. functioning as a forum and clearinghouse for the sharing of information as well as the dissemination of best practices through workshops, seminars, publication of journals, reports, bulletins, briefs and other literature, and d. helping create an environment for imparting expertise to people interested in rigorous program evaluation and training to policy makers/implementers on how to conduct randomized and qualitative evaluations in social policies.
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22. With a rigorous adherence to objectives of MGNREGA especially articulating voices of poor in the realm of livelihood security , PERS would help create a robust, dynamic and self-evolving knowledge-space that is authoritative, objective, nonpartisan and transparent in generic terms of monitoring and evaluation as mentioned in the Section 11 of the Act. Further, PERS is intended to breakdown the silos in social science research and deepen the sphere of participatory and informed dialogue between policy makers and civil society. For this, in collaboration with multilateral organizations and private sector, PERS should set up Chairs in the universities, social science institutes, IITs/IIMs for carrying out teaching, research and advocacy in areas of development, innovation and sustainable livelihood. 23. Why PERS? A couple of reasons behind suggesting PERS are: (i) there is nothing in terms of independent policy research and evaluation support at the central or state level. PIN (Professional Institutional Network) in the MGNREGA cell of MoRD is generally bureaucratically driven and often operates on the principles of ex-post-facto analysis of the implementation of MGRNEGA. the impact of PIN studies on course correction, innovation and policy change is rather limited as most policies changes in MGNREGA have been carried out without any research and analysis support of PIN; (ii) Based on the field visit, interaction and meeting with key officials at NIAR (LABSNA) the Working Group on 28 April 2010 does not think that NIAR is equipped with enough in-house resources, skills, aptitudes and backed by quality researchers including dedicated professionals to justify the role of “ National Resource Center” for MGNREGA. In short, members of Working Group recommend that the NIAR needs to focus more seriously on research for teaching and training of career civil servants rather than undertaking Livelihood based development research. 24. Location of PERS: It should ideally be located in the proposed branch of NIRD in Jaipur (Rajasthan). 25. Structure of PERS: PERS will be composed of three units (or sections); namely “Independent Evaluation or Impact Assessment Unit’ that will focus on various implementing aspects including impact analysis and appraisal of MGNREGA. Second, ‘Research and Analysis Unit’ will be a new avatar of current PIN (Professional Institutional Network) for commissioning, guiding, and coordinating studies from a network of universities, social science institutes, and civil society organizations for fostering public-private 12
partnership in the monitoring and evaluation of MGNREGA. Third unit will be “ Publication &Communication Unit”. This will be primarily responsible for publishing Policy Briefs, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Working Papers, documentaries, short films etc. for effective and transparent dissemination of information and setting the stage for informed dialogue between people and the government about the implementation of MGNREGA. 26. Capacity Building Reforms for Strengthening Panchayati Raj. Some specific recommendations are I) Converting PRIs into Mission Mode: “Panchayat Empowerment & Accountability Incentive Scheme” of MoPR ( Ministry of Panchyati Raj) may be made an integral part of the Mission; (ii) Following Maharashtra Experience, state governments need to make four meetings of Gram Sabha as mandatory for enhancing the implementation of MGNREGA. Necessary amendments in the Constitution may be made in this regard; (iii) Borrowing from Kerala experience, a campaign mode of decentralization must accompany the implementation of MGRNEGA in various states. Either transfer cadre (Kerala model) or create a new cadre for PRI( Bihar model): Learning from Kerala experience, the Working Group suggests that even while the State Government is the staff-creating and cadre-controlling authority, PRIs need to have full freedom in assigning work, supervising its execution, reviewing performance and even imposing minor punishments, if required. 27. For urgent need of ‘communitization of capacity building’, MoRD needs to declare people based rural development centres in Ralegaon Siddhi, MKKS in Vijaypura, SPS (MP), Vilasrao Salunkhe (Pani-baba)’s experiments in Purandhar block in Pune, Subhas Palekar’s Zero budget agriculture in Amaravati and various similar innovative experiments across the country as “National Centres for excellence for Community Learning’ for imparting training in rural development. An expert group needs to be set up to identify similar rural development initiatives across the country. 28. Urgent reforms are necessary for NIRD and SIRDs; the working group welcomes the initiative of MoRD to setup an Expert Group to consider the feasibility of reforms for NIRD. In collaboration with state governments, SIRDs also need to be completely revamped and reformed for providing support to MGNREGA. The apathy of SIRDs towards MGNREGA can be gauzed from the fact that not a single SIRD reported or responded to the queries of
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Working Group wrt capacity building. (refer to visits of Working Group in annexure) 29. Capacity Building Recommendations for North East. To overcome capacity deficiency in the north eastern states, we suggest strengthening, streamlining and mainstreaming the faculty strength, infrastructure and training modules respectively of NIRD-NERC, Guwahati and all the SIRDs in the region. Large states like Arunachal Pradesh should open more extension centers of SIRDs in three different regions of the state. We also suggest better networking of these SIRDs with their extension centers and with NIRD Guwahati through video conferencing etc. Power cut is a problem in interior regions of North East. These remotely located power deficient SIRDs and their extension centers must be equipped with alternative sources of power like solar power and DG Sets. The expenditure undertaken on this head can be met from the administrative cost of the rural developmental programmes including MGNREGA. Following steps need to be taken for North East; 30. (a)Iimportant stakeholders of the programme particularly the programme officers (BDOs) be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and MGNREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how NREGA is an intervention in development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through NREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development in the context of the North East. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up NREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development and participation in the region. 31. (b)The SHG movement is slowly but steadily gaining ground in North East. Hence we suggest better coordination between SGSY and NREGA and explore the SHG route of mobilising workers in NREGA. 32. (c)Social Audit. Once the acceptability of social audit been established, initially this exercise can be undertaken by reputed organisations like MKSS and afterwards can be passed on to regional organisations of credibility, import and expertise. 14
33. (d)Financial Inclusion. Financial inclusion is limited because of thin spread of banks/post offices. The topography and cultural practices of people also contribute to it. To overcome the topographical compulsions, we suggest the introduction of bike-cum-barefoot satellite banking system by the postal department/banks. The postal department is undertaking innovative expansion in its activities. We find that in states like Meghalaya home delivery of letters/documents are not undertaken in remote rural areas. This is the right time that a model like bike-cum- barefoot satellite banking (with biometric cards) with postal article delivery can be combined by the postal department and the job can be undertaken by the modern postman. 34. (e)Role of SIRDs in Awareness Generation. SIRDs of respective states, can be given a project to identify the major languages of their states, collaborate with the local linguistic departments of respective universities and can get efficient translation done for dissemination of MGNREGA material. 35. (f)To overcome the problem of shortage of technical assistants, in addition to having a HR policy in place in MGNREGA and increasing remuneration associated with this post, the authorities can recruit local youths with class XII pass certificates and train them for two/three months by the government engineers of the district/block/divisions and then employ them for measurement and technical supervision of NREGA works. 36. (g)Ombudsmen. Many of the NER States except Assam and Tripura, do not find enough candidates for the position of Ombudsman. Where ever, they are available, the list is heavy with retired bureaucrats only. To overcome this problem, to make the selection inclusive and to strengthen this institution, the required 20 years experience may be reduced to 15 years so that we get candidates from the civil society, as in many states civil society is of recent origin including separation of judiciary from executive. (h)Helpline. No state in the region has a dedicated MGNREGA 24*7 help line. This should be immediately taken up and activated.
PS: The Working Group notes with some concern that a parallel ‘working group’ has also been formed by MoRD on 11 March 2010 to recommend ‘appropriate measures for the technical and administrative strengthening of the States and their implementing agencies’. (Ref; No.J-11011/15/2007-NREGA). Therefore, members of Working Group wonder as to how MoRD would like to reconcile the 15
recommendations of Working Group on “Capacity Building” with those of Working Group on’ technical and administrative strengthening” as the task of capacity building indeed involves suggesting measures for the technical and administrative strengthening of the States and their implementing agencies’. We would have appreciated if MoRD could have shared its own perspective on what it considers “capacity building” before venturing into setting up another group.1
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The report has been written by unofficial members of the working group; official members provided logistic, coordination and research support as and when required. Since the official members were busy with multiple governmental tasks and not often available for consultation, discussion and field visits, the division of labour worked optimally and effectively.
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CHAPTER – I INTRODUCTION What is Capacity Building? Based on discussions with various stakeholders, field visits in various states and learning from theories of neo-institutionalists,( Olson& March,1997; Steinmo, 2001), the Working Group proposes to define capacity building not as ordinary shortage of staff and lack of training facilities but as the dynamic process of developing, strengthening and institutionalizing the ‘rules of game’, norms, standard operating procedures, skills, abilities, and resources that organizations, communities and individuals need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fastchanging world of policy implementation. (Ann Philbin, 1996). Capacity building, broadly speaking, has two major aspects; for organizations, it relates to whole gamut of governance, administration (including human resources, financial management, and legal matters), business processes, program development, evaluation, and policy changes for innovation. For individuals, capacity building refers to excellence in individual performance, leadership development, socializing managerial values, technical skills, training opportunities, organizing abilities, and other areas of personal and professional development that includes sensitivity to values of equity, participation and inclusion. Thus, individual empowerment eventually results in the ‘communitization of capacities’ especially marginalized and socially excluded groups in the society. In other words, capacity building is not a stand-alone, top-down strengthening of managerial systems and imparting technical know-how to implementers but in reality a ‘polycentric’ governance (ala Vincent Ostrom) that covers the whole range of implementation, accountability, monitoring, and evaluation of policy at multiple levels including systems and community at the grassroots. Capacity Building for MGNREGA: Diagnosis of issues and challenges MGNREGA is certainly the largest and most innovative flagship program of the Central Government of India in terms of its outlay, coverage, expected outcomes and the potential to change the face of rural India. With a cumulative employment generation figure of 578.65 crore person-days, and a budgetary allocation of Rs.40,100 crores for 2010-11, MGNREGA promises the largest employment guarantee in the world. Its current budgetary allocation stands at Rs.40,100 crores. As the truly comprehensive Operational Guidelines (2008) backing MGNREGA clearly enunciate, the intention behind the legislation goes well beyond the narrow goal of providing relief employment or unemployment doles. It is perhaps worthwhile to remind ourselves of the goals of MGNREGA as set out in these guidelines in order to define the framework within which the idea of capacity building
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for it needs to be looked at: “ a. Strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups by providing a fall-back employment source, when other employment alternatives are scarce or inadequate b. Growth engine for sustainable development of an agricultural economy. Through the process of providing employment of works that address causes of chronic poverty such as drought, deforestation and soil erosion, the Act seeks to strengthen the natural resource base of rural livelihood and create durable assets in rural areas. c. Empowerment of rural poor through the processes of a rights-based law d. New ways of doing business, as a model of governance reform anchored on the principles of transparency and grass-root democracy” [MoRD, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.2; emphasis added] Backed by a constitutional right, it is MGNREGA's mandate of addressing chronic causes of poverty, redressing imbalances and deficiencies in the natural resource base, empowerment of the poor and governance reform that makes it stand apart from all social sector initiatives hitherto attempted. Taken together, a fulfilment of these mandates may well translate into reality the potential of MGNREGA. The above mandate points to the inherent challenges and the tremendous opportunities present in MGNREGA. If the opportunities are seized, the goal can be realized. However, in order to seize these opportunities, several challenges have to be overcome. This becomes all the more critical given the yet unfinished agenda of grassroots devolution and decentralization first embarked upon nearly two decades ago with the constitutional 73rd Amendment, followed by its extension to scheduled areas in 1996, widely heralded as the dawn of a new era in the history of India and also as the largest decentralization project in the world. The report of this Working Group seeks to deal with some of the major challenges which, despite the impressive progress registered by MGNREGA in the initial years, need to be addressed, if the true potential of MGNREGA is to be realized. It is true that MGNREGA is anchored in the decentralized administration of PRIs, (sections 15,16,17 of the Act), but the role of career civil servants especially District Collectors better known as District Program Coordinators (DPC), Program Officers, officials from Line departments and various support staff at the grassroots continues to be critical to the success of MGNREGA. Given the unique rights perspective of
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MGNREGA, conventional models of public administration and management have become largely irrelevant. Implementing MGRFNEAG provides us rare opportunity for social re-engineering of citizen-centric administration and innovating the participative and decentralized public service delivery (Ref; “Unlocking Human Capital”, Second Administrative Reforms Commission). Although a multi-tier structure of administrative and institutional arrangements for implementation and monitoring with specified roles and responsibilities have been set up, ground level reports suggest that various institutional structures are not working in tandem and District Collectors (DPC) and Program Officers are still struggling with conflicting demands of vertical and horizontal coordination across departments and different tiers of government especially Panchayati Raj in the implementation of MGNREGA. For instance, Maharashtra has not suffered not only from lack of social mobilization of agricultural laborers and work site management issues but also from the usual bureaucratic turf wars and coordination conflicts between Chief Executive Officers of Zila Parishad and Collectors. In contrast, Bihar, Chhattisgarh etc continue to suffer from ‘deficits’ of poorly crafted and inadequately managed administrative and management systems at all levels. The innovation of a separate ‘MGNREGA cell’ has not yet produced desired outcomes as state governments continue to grapple with shortage of dedicated support staff at critical stages of planning, implementation and monitoring. ( Refer to Appendix on Chhattisgarh). Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks not only note shortage of dedicated personnel, poor training facilities and lack of community participation, but also find evidence of growing dissatisfaction of the staff especially those ‘contract staff’ with regard to poor working conditions and arbitrary contract appointment policies of various state governments. Except AP, no state government has yet formulated a clearly articulated Human Resource Development policy. Therefore, the open protest marches and rallies of MGNREGA support staff in states like Bihar and Maharashtra, remind us about the looming crisis in MGRNEGA. Apart from ‘moral hazards and distorted incentives’, MGNREGA also suffers from ‘path dependencies’ of top-down bureaucratic mode of governance at various levels of implementation in the states. This not only results in known administrative failures such as underutilizations of funds (Jharkhand failed to spend Rs. 1000 crore in 20089), poor-project completion( total number of works taken up under the scheme from February 2006 to September 2009 is over 79 lakh but the number of works completed is less than 31 lakh, about 39%, according to a study of Planning Commission ) but also failed experiments of social mobilization such as “Goan Sathi” in Orissa and the toying of idea of providing ‘uniform’ for mates and Rojzar Sevaks in Jharkhand, a state battling against ‘uniformed and un-uniformed’ Maoist rebels! Therefore, capacity building from a uniquely rights perspective and communitization of governance has indeed emerged a major critical pillar to the success of MGNREGA; much hyped ‘convergence’ has suffered largely because of lack of innovative administrative and management systems at district and block levels. In short, the implementation of MGNREGA suffers as much from the socalled capture by “particular interests” or as from the lack of institutional and managerial capabilities to perform at multiple levels. Therefore, the so-called crisis of ‘capacity building’ has, in part, been caused by “demand over load” and in part caused by “supply- side -distortions’ due to the complexity of multilevel implementation from the Center to Gram Sabha. This has further been aggravated by ‘astronomical numbers of stakeholders” that demand not
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only a robust structure of Human resources but also a well defined strategy to develop the capabilities of these stakeholders to perform the assigned tasks efficiently and efficiently. According to a note submitted to the Working Group by NIRD, the tentative estimate of the number of stakeholders in the implementation (other than the millions of the worker households) is more than seven millions. And a tentative training estimate informs that the current coverage is about 1.5 to 2.0 millions ( Ref to Annexure on NIRD note to the working group dated 24 June 2010). A note by Ministry of Panchyati Raj on the Capacity Building for PRIs also comments that “the 28.5 lakh elected representatives including Chairmen (by whatever name called like Sarpanch, Pradhans, Mukhiyas, Adhyaksh or Sabhadhipati) and eight lakh key officials who deal with or work under the Panchayats, are all poorly trained.”( refer to Annexure XVI). In this the role of SIRDs and NIRD become crucial. However, considering the lack of cutting-edge research environment that NIRD suffers from and the comatose in which SIRDs have entered into, it is almost impossible to think that training needs of key Officials/Staff of MGNRGEA and PRIs functionaries could be undertaken without an innovative “government-civil society’ partnership.
Though mandated under section 18 of the Act and harshly reminded by CAG report (2008) and various civil society reports about the shortage of key staff and distortions in the delivery systems, state governments have been rather tardy or wilfully negligent in laying down requisite human resources structures in place, however every state government loves the ‘quick bite’ of so-called “untied NREGS funds’ from the Center! Other than Rajasthan, AP and Kerala, most state governments have been implementing MGNREGA with skeleton support staff from line departments without any professional and moblizational support from civil society, which is a critical stakeholder in ensuring the integrity of the implementation of MGNREGA. For example, Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh is one of the top ten districts in terms of high expenditure but the state of Madhya Pradesh began appointing dedicated Program Officers (POs) only in 2009. North East is also an instructive case where much of the work is being implemented without any community participation and adequate management systems. Except Tripura and Sikkim, states in the North East have taken up implementation in a ‘food for work mode’ or ‘BRGF format’( refer to annexure on North East). Although they need specific strategies for planning and implementation, regions like Ladakh and Andaman Nicobars do not exist on the radar of MGNREGA. In this scenario country wide, much has been expected from over-burdened, fatigued and politically challenged District Collectors and Program Officers who multitask much beyond their human and managerial capacities. Notorious Line departments have increasingly become life-line of MGNREGA. And also much faith has been placed in the efficacy of PRIs which often work without any infrastructure and human resource support systems. In other words, MGNREGA requires broad based re-engineering in the processes of the administrative systems, and management reforms especially in areas of human resources coupled with innovative support systems in a Public-Private partnership mode with robust accountability mechanisms. It is this challenge of addressing ‘capacity building” at multilevel, the Working Group takes up in the following chapters of the report; each chapter is designed in a separate ‘diagnostic and problem solving’ format.
21
Capacities, Capabilities and Support Systems In order to realize the goals that MGNREGA has set out for itself, there need to be first and foremost human capacities. The capabilities of these human capacities need to be developed so that they are able to undertake the responsibility mandated to them. Human capacities and capabilities further need to be backed by proper supporting institutions, which act as decision support systems, assisting in concurrent monitoring of outcomes and better management of the schemes initiated under MGNREGA. It is this Working Group's considered view that the key to maximizing the gains from MGNREGA implementation and the key to effective democratic devolution and decentralization is the creation and enhancement of capacities available with the PRIs at all levels, The institutional framework which defines the interactions of these human capacities has to be designed in order that the challenges of accountability and autonomous spaces are both met. Such a framework must also recognize that better governance is not merely about increased “efficiency” (which is no doubt important) in the sense of cost or time efficiency but has to be seen as the ability to respond with concrete outcomes, while at the same time following due process, transparency and regularity. Further, the organization (both in the sense of a body carrying out a task and the underlying structure, allocation of responsibilities and the interconnections between the various components) delivering MGNREGA to the people of this country needs to be characterized by a common sense of purpose and cohesiveness, inter-connectedness, sharing and flow of needed expertise and insights, with an ability to work across walls rather than in silos. The subject of this report therefore, deals with: 1. Capacities, i.e., personnel required at different levels to carry out the tasks which go towards fulfilling the goals above 2. Capabilities of these personnel to carry out the tasks mandated 3. the support systems at national, state and district level for the capacities and capabilities to be fully realized Since the last of these is the most challenging and in this Working Group's view, has the maximum bearing on the first two, this report will first look at this aspect and then the other.
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CHAPTER II Human Resource Development Reforms Issues related to Human Resources 1.
2.
In laying out the organisational structure and staffing and specifying the administrative expenditure, the Government of India has followed a tradition. It relied on district administration especially the office of the district collector to deliver the goods. This model has had relative success, for example, in implementation of watershed program. Further, PRIs are implementation partners so the scheme assumed they had this local self government structure too to deliver. Hence it rightly assumed that a lean staffed organisational structure would suffice when it specified 6 percent as administrative expenditure. However, the scheme has faced several difficulties on account of staffing in general and employing professionals at all levels to deliver the program in specific. ◦ Lack of Dedicated Pro-active Teams at the Cutting Edge. Our field visits and interactions with implementing support staff in the districts and blocks note a severe shortage of dedicated personnel and poor training facilities, affecting community mobilisation. Barring a couple of states such as AP and Rajasthan, the implementation structure stops at the block level, relying as it does on Panchayats whose implementation capacities vary widely across states and districts. Thus often the system is in reactive and fire fighting mode rather than in a pro-active mode with adequate capacities to plan ahead and to implement these plans well. ◦ Ad Hoc Appointments without proper recruitment and selection strategies and High Turnover. By allocating a very low administrative expenditure, unwittingly the government incentivised ad hoc appointments of low quality staff in large numbers, with every RD secretary and district collector somehow managing with whoever s/he could get in the local job market. Indian job market has become open and nationalized and movement of all categories of human resources, from professionals to unskilled workers, across states to job intensive areas is a common phenomenon. It is also clear that with private sector opening up, the salary expectations are higher2. Problems commonly found in state NREGA systems are the following: (a) compensation structure indicating ad hoc nature of employment such as lump sum monthly payment; (b) much of the responsibility to hire staff is left to the DPC without specifying “how” or to the Mukhia/Sarpanch; and (c) high turnover.
Existing Capacities – An Analysis 3.
2
Given that the MGNREGA made a paradigm shift from conventional “relief” or wage employment generation programs by making a constitutional guarantee to wage seekers, the organizational governance and management (delivery) structure must be in a state of high preparedness and must have the internal capacity and systems, so as to timely and adequately respond to the demand as and when it arises.
It is amply demonstrated in many of the government projects having to raise their salaries constantly in order to retain older staff and to attract higher quality staff, and is also evident in actions of certain states within NREGA too and what is likely to be prescribed by NRLM.
23 4.
5.
6.
7.
Preparedness of the institutional structure or lack of it remains a huge concern, however. This is primarily a function of weakness in planning function and in turn that depends on the quality of staff, team composition, and their capacity and willingness to work for the poor and at the grassroots, round the year. Working Group’s observation is that the human resources placed at the disposal of the Gram Panchayat (GP) are by and large inadequate and widely varying. The systems of recruitment, appointment, remuneration, termination and terms of service, where on contract are also either absent, or have not been able to sustain themselves after the initial round (example Bihar). By making GPs the major implementation partner and assigning critical roles to PRIs at the intermediate and district levels, backed by a direct transfer of finances to districts, MGNREGA has moved ahead in terms of taking care of two of the bottlenecks in the way of effective democratic decentralization and devolution. However, in the absence of adequate functionaries at the GP level and above, the core mandate of MGNREGA is suffering. Adequate human resources with systems for their placement are therefore urgently needed. An assessment of existing capacities made by the Working Group through direct field observations and study of reviews of MGNREGA implementation has led to the conclusion that the human resources placed at the disposal of the Gram Panchayat (GP) are by and large inadequate and widely varying. The systems of recruitment, appointment, remuneration, termination and terms of service, where on contract are also either absent, or have not been able to sustain themselves after the initial round (example Bihar). When one does a SWOT analysis of the MGNREGA institutional structure, one finds that the delivery of the employment guarantee has faltered, due to weaknesses in either in the state apparatus, or in PRIs, or there is a slack in people’s mobilization to demand (due to lack of people’s movement or people’s organization at the grassroots). Supply driven systems seem to be strong in a few states (AP, TN, Rajasthan and MP) and they haven’t depended on or waited for the demand to emerge. In cases where PRIs are strong (WB, Kerala) and a supporting state government apparatus exists, again the performance is better. In the rest of the states, neither of the three is strong, and the performance has suffered. The same formulation seems to apply in tribal areas in central Indian belt across from the west to east. Where does the capacity exist within the government system or outside? All states seem to be recruiting staff from the market to build institutional capacity for NREGA implementation, although leadership and certain senior level engineering and accounts positions are being filled by staff on deputation. A close examination of organograms of AP, MP and Rajasthan reveals that management teams at all levels, namely, the state, district and block level, are being set up with contractual staff. Contractual recruitment from market under NRHM further proves that this is now a widespread phenomenon across sectors. If this is so, why should there not be a proper policy and proper process for recruitment and selection for this category of staff?
Recommendations 8.
Strengthen Demand by Enlisting People’s Institutions Such as SHGs and Federations. Demand strengthening processes and systems must be put in place in this phase of MGNREGA. The Working group recommends pro-action regarding the processes enabling community mobilization and awareness raising regarding their rights that irrespective of the actors. As a first measure, the government must recognize the role of formations such as SHGs and producer groups comprising of BPL families, and their aggregations at the village level and above, in helping the poor assert their rights and in helping them bargain a better deal from the PRIs in the gram sabhas as well as the government, and often with banks and market forces too. Given that the SHG movement is still weak in many parts of the north and tribal India, the government must
24 give it further momentum. It will synergise the efforts that now NRLM is putting in at a vast scale. MGNREGA could then hope to have more assertive poor in Gram Sabha, and dictate their priorities in work selection. 9.
Decentralise Implementation to Sub-Block Level - Form Gram Vikas Sankuls (Village Development Clusters) as Planning and Implementation Units: Based on experiences across several livelihoods projects like SERP AP and Jeevika, Bihar, it is evident that a dedicated governance and management structure is unavoidable to produce the results at scale and across districts.
10. Size of a Village Development Cluster. On an average there are about 90 to 100 villages per block in India. We may divide the block into 3 parts, each to be called the Village Development Cluster (Gram Vikas Sankul, GVS) comprising 30 to 35 villages each or about 15 GPs (or one-third of the block). This middle tier GVS will be the cutting edge level of MGNREGA implementation between the GP and the Intermediate Panchayat. Such a layer will be co-terminus with optimum deployment of personnel, and will ensure: (i) proper planning; (ii) greater cohesion and coordination between GPs and within project teams; (iii) time-bound sanctions and releases, smoother functioning, through a reduction in the critical distance between GP and MGNREGA implementation hub; (iv) timely measurements and valuations of work; and (v) powerful social mobilization and social audit. Apart from increasing human resource allocation at the cutting edge of implementation, the Gram Vikas Sankul also ensures a level of efficiency of use of such resources since they are collectively used by several GPs. 11. While preparing its report, this Working Group also is in receipt of the recommendations of the Working Group on Planning and Execution (P&E) and is happy to note that there is convergence in recommendations on this aspect. It is also in agreement with the recommendation of the Working Group (P&E) tat the delineation of this cluster or GVS needs to be done on the principle of area and distance rather than administrative boundaries and accepts the recommendation of setting the delineation limit at about a population size of 40,000. In terms of national averages, this coincides with roughly onethird of the block. This Working Group also notes that this is roughly the area on which the cutting edge of NRLM implementation is also proposed to rest. This gives grounds for convergence and pooling of human resources at the disposal of PRIs. 12. Place a full time dedicated NREGA Program Facilitation Team (PFT) at GVS. A very strong fulltime spearhead team is needed at the sub-block level, which almost on a daily basis, can easily reach out to, mobilize and empower the poor, wage seekers to make demands on the system. 13. Roles of a PFT: Such a dedicated PFT will prepare an annual micro-plan for each gram panchayat each year resulting in shelf of works and annual budget estimates (material and labour budget both). The PFT will train Gram Panchayat representatives and functionaries and also village-level workers, and work with them on all aspects such as implementation, asset verification, measurement and payment, and monitoring and evaluation, MIS maintenance, and social audit. WG makes a strong recommendation of ensuring full involvement of women self help groups in micro-planning, monitoring, as well as in social audit exercises. 14. PFT Composition. Exact composition, educational qualifications and experience, and compensation structure is to be worked out separately. Broadly speaking a three member team headed by some one who has at least three years experience in rural development or by someone with a MSW or Post graduate degree in Development Studies or Rural Management with at least two years’ experience. Other two members could be fresh post graduates, although they too preferably should have a year’s
25 experience (since often large number of experienced professionals is not available). PFT will reach to a population about a third of a block, or 30 to 35 villages, and in terms of geographical area a maximum of 15,000 hectare. This is a large enough area to employ and distribute the cost of hiring quality staff. Thus there would be three NSTs in a block each led by a PFT team leader and reporting to the Program Officer at the block level. At the GP level, the PFT is assisted by Gram Rozgar Sahayaks. 15. Costs @5 percent of total work value. The administrative support budget for a PFT would be Rs. 810,000 per year (Rs. 20,000 per month for PFT team leader, and Rs. 15,000 per month each for the two members, plus 30% for travel and office overheads). NST will have to have carried out NREGA works worth 1.6 crore rupees in a year, to earn this @5 per cent administration cost. This doesn’t seem too difficult. 16. Specific observations related to Field Assistant (FA) or Gram Rozgar Sevak( AP Model). Being the lynchpin of MGNREGA at the GP level, active and accountable GRSs can make a major difference. Their quality, motivation and skills need to be developed and sustained through careful selection, training, technical support, incentives and clear accountability. Many irregularities spring from this level since he/she is the muster registering agency. There is much political interference in identifying this person. In order to insulate this institution from such pressures, it is recommended that the FA/GRS is automatically appointed by a computer programme that selects the literate person who has worked the highest number of days in the village. Such a person is trained in programme implementation. 17. Specific Observations related to Mate system. The active job seekers are being organised into groups under a ‘mate’ who is an educated worker. He/she helps in taking the muster and in organising work at the work site. Mates are being trained in various aspects of programme implementation for which a separate organization has been created. Kudamshree model of Kerala offers an innovative perspective on mobilizing women as ‘mates’. Backed by automation ,AP model of identifying Mate from the active workers could be upscaleed across the country.
Recruitment and Selection Process for Professionals 18. AP and MP experience in NREGA and that of Jeevika in Bihar and VKP in Tamil Nadu shows that: • the system of recruitment and selection of professionals must be an objective, transparent and systematic exercise, not just for management cadre at the state and district level (in AP, even mate selection is done scientifically); • Methodology must eliminate biases in selection, especially over-reliance on interviews; • Such recruitments could be outsourced to credible agencies, backed by administrative and political support. The involvement of SRIJAN and SIDS3 in the recruitment process for the Jeevika project of the Government of Bihar is an illustration of such outsourcing. The project is being executed by an autonomous agency, the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLP) which also outsourced the recruitment process. 3
Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (Srijan) is an NGO working on water and agriculture related issues in several states of India. Srijan Infratech and Development Services (SIDS) is Srijan's consultancy arm
26 19. Recruitment and Selection Process for MGNREGA must follow the following steps: • Step One. The first key task is to create a profile of the desired candidate with respect to her knowledge, skills, attitude and values (KSAV) with respect to the job profile. Once clearly defined, these attributes help in deciding on the right person, a methodology (tests) would be finalized. • Step Two. Methodology must include Multiple and formal Tests of Selection: This allows for a more wholesome understanding of the person to be selected. It should include tests not just for cognitive ability (Intelligence Quotient tests) but tests for attitudes such as ability to work in teams, empathy with the poor in the villages and achievement motivation. • Step Three. In order to be able to understand and rate candidates, three kinds of tests can be used: (i) Psychometric Tests: These are tests designed to indicate how psychologically comfortable an individual is with the kind of work expected to be taken up in the project. There are various types of psychometric tests which are used depending on what we want to assess in an individual. (ii) Sociometric Tests: These tests are used to indicate an individual’s ability and attitude towards working in peer groups or in a team; (iii) Evaluation Interview: If handled well, this gives an overall view of what makes an individual tick. It also helps determine whether the candidate would ‘fit’ with the role as well as with the organization or not. The interview, like other tools in this methodology, is used not so much as a tool of selection, but as a tool of rejection; (iv) In order to further test the suitability to rural development, the process must also include village immersion at least for fresh graduates who apply for field positions. Each of the tests would have a weight assigned and the final selection arrived at after a total of all scores. Hence weights for interview should never be more than 20% in the overall selection process. • Step Four. Administration of the tests must be outsourced and should be formalized rather than be left to chance and vague. A Selection panel should be formally constituted to oversee the process. The interview panel should consist of experts who had experience of working in similar Projects (rather than only department officials or academicians). Clear, unambiguous and transparent criteria for selection or rejection of candidates should be placed. Having panelists who have been formally trained in the use of Selection techniques: Persons sitting as members of the selection panel should be oriented towards the selection process and techniques of observation/ evaluation for the various tests. It should not be assumed that anybody with general work experience can be a good observer/interviewer. 20. It bears repetition that the success of the initial process led the Government of Bihar to approve a similar process of selection across all levels of Jeevika. Thus, almost 300 staff across all the three levels were recruited for the first phase of implementation. Similarly more than 1200 district and field level staff were recruited in Tamil Nadu. Now Panchayati Raj department has also adopted this process. National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) too has outsourced recruitment and selection in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh for state and district positions. 21. We strongly recommend that a similar system of recruitment and selection is designed and implemented for Gram Rozgar Sahayak or Field Assistant, the lynchpin of MGNREGA at the GP level, since many irregularities spring from this level since he/she is the muster registering agency and there is much political interference in identifying this person. Further, their quality, motivation and skills need to be developed and sustained through careful selection, training, technical support, incentives and clear accountability.
Accountability through Performance Management
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22. Once recruited often the question of accountability of contract staff is raised. Experience of VKP, Tamil Nadu and that of anti poverty project Gemi Dirya of Sri Lanka indicates that a system of performance management that grades the performance of staff on annual basis and rewards or punishes them by linking it to salary and non monetary awards, and to promotion or termination, can be hugely effective. 23. MGNREGA must introduce a system of performance management with following salient features: 1. Performance assessment is done in the field through village visits and areas to be assessed would include potential wage seekers’ participation, reviewing books maintained, reviewing social audit process; 2. Individual as well as team’s performance must be assessed as per stated Key Performance Indicators; 3. Assessment teams come from the state and other districts and also include village leaders from other villages; 4. Appraisal follows a 360 degree feedback system, with comments from senior, peer and juniors. 5. The System is to be followed for district and block and sub-block teams but also for state teams. 6. The 360 degree appraisal method must build in a system of detailed feedback from the village community and the PRIs at different levels. In particular, the involvement of the panchayats and gram sabhas in planning, decision-making and the emergence of strong grassroots institutional structures should be a key element of the evaluation. 7. The HR system must also work as a coordination mechanism for smoothening out implementation-related issues that may arise between the PFT and the PRIs. For this the HR structure at district and state level must play a pro-active role.
Human Resource Policy for Contract Staff 24. Government must take a long term perspective regarding its HR policy for NREGA. AP NREGA, Bihar’s Jeevika and Tamil Nadu’s VKP experience shows that contract staff would work under well defined rules that include specification of their salary in scales and grades, annual increments, leaves including maternity, transfer norms, travel allowances, cell phone allowance, lap top allowance, grievance redressal, and even exit interviews in case of resignation. Except giving provident fund and security of lifetime permanent employment, the rest of the stuff seems to be what a normal employment would provide for. These agencies also have a well defined compensation structure in a matrix form that allows for increments within each category. They define a promotion policy ensuring career growth. This leads to a sense of job security and eliminates arbitrary decisions on part of the authorities. 25. Working group strongly recommends formulation of a comprehensive HR policy with abovementioned features, especially for contract staff in each state.
Governance 26. Imperative for improving governance of a major program like this is to set up a separate organization registered as a society with a full time CEO who is given the best team recruited through a transparent and competent method, from open market just has been done in many programs even in the education sector (e.g. National Literacy Mission). This must be repeated at the state and district level too.
Culture
28 27. The functioning and implementation of such a structure would be helped by adopting a culture with clear purpose, results orientation, business plan for at least three years, and systems of planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, in place.
CHAPTER III Capacity Building for MGNREGA 3.1 The Challenges and Problems The operational guidelines of MGNREGA clearly state that there is need for setting up a chain of resource centres from the national to the state to the district level [Chapter 13]. While these resource centres will act as technology discovery, development and dissemination centres, the cutting edge in terms of training and capacity building has correctly been envisaged at the district level [Section 13.4.1.e]. It is the working group's view that the capacity building and technical support hub envisaged at the district centre is the need of not only MGNREGA but also all rural development initiatives and social sector delivery schemes. The working group is of the view however, that a strategy needs to be thought of for operationalization of this vision so that high quality capacity building and support hubs are indeed made possible at the district level. The following section hopes to detail such an operationalization vision. This will involve an understanding of what has troubled capacity building efforts in rural development interventions in general and MGNREGA in particular in the country thus far. The capacity building experience of MGNREGA in particular and rural development programmes in general has shown that this is one aspect that has been neglected most. There appear to be serious gaps in terms of training infrastructure, training material, resource-persons to undertake training, syllabi and course content. These were observed in most states during the Working Group's visits. Either there is no training infrastructure at the district and sub-district level in several states, or where such infrastructure exists, trainers of good quality are missing or the capacity building of these trainers itself is a huge gap. There exists variation in the contents, methodology, duration, expected outcome and available physical infrastructure in training programmes of MGNREGA across states in India (if we look at Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, NE States, Bihar, Rajastan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and
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Maharastra). Although, some of these variations can be explained in terms of different nature of institutions and stakeholders involved, level of social mobilisation and presence of regional specificities; yet a good amount of variation is due to unnecessarily differently designed course contents and delivery mechanisms. In this respect, it is also clear that institutions such as NIRD and SIRDs have not been able to deliver in the last 5 years or so. It is also not clear to this Working Group whether they have the capacities to deliver the kind of training and support required to fulfill the objectives cited in the Operational Guidelines Section 1.2(b) cited above. The Working Group has also gone through the concept note and material available on the website with regard to a joint initiative of the MoRD and UNDP which seeks to build capacities of MGNREGA stakeholders across the board. While the initiative is important, as we have observed in our field visits and interactions with NIAR (Mussoorie), NIRD and SIRD that government training institutions woefully lack the capacity and also orientation to impart training for NREGA. The Working Group suggests that an excessively government –centric approach would not only be inadequate but also counterproductive given the people-centric nature of MGRNEGA and also PRI centred planning and implementation. Therefore, not only voluntary organizations would provide hand-holding support but also efforts need to be made to establish People’ Learning Centres at the block or sub-block levels. It is also observed that the above initiative would benefit by a series of CSO consultations held across the country to seed the concept and invite partnerships. It would also be appropriate to consider CSO partnership in the steering of the project itself by giving space to CSOs in the Empowered Committee overseeing the initiative. There also seems to be a lack of a training plan or strategy at the state and national levels. It is clear that there is a lack of cohesion and shared sense of purpose across the board. This is seriously impacting the quality of outcomes on the ground. In general, the problems that have beset capacity building efforts with respect to rural developments can be seen as arising from the following:
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b) Training institutions has very little practical experience of doing what they are training in and have very little touch with the intricacies of ground-level realities, implementation and social engineering4 c) Training institutions are located at a geographical distance, farm removed from where the actual development intervention is scheduled to take place. d) These institutes are run by personnel who speak a language which is largely incomprehensible to the people and whose attitude is didactic rather than dialogic, and who seem to lack the passion for the work which their training will enable. e) A very serious lacuna has been the absence of any kind of follow-up in the field to ensure that the benefits of training are materialised at the field-level for which it was meant. f) There has been an absence of a recognized system of certification for the training efforts g) Training also tends to become too specific5. Overall, the planning and implementation requirements can become so tightly structured that it discourage imaginative and innovative training methods, sticking to what is “allowed”. h) There seems to be a mismatch between what an institution is capable of delivering and what it is actually expected to deliver. Thus, some of the above mentioned issues could be taken care of by using existing training institutions and infrastructure as a facilitation and networking centres, which could also perhaps cater to the training needs of certain types (such as entitlements of wage seekers, procedures and guidelines) but cannot train implementing teams in the intricacies of plan preparation, execution, conflict resolution, social mobilization and social audit.
4
This was further confirmed by the visit of the Working Group to a few government training and support institutions considered at some point or other by the MoRD to get involved in the capacity building effort around MGNREGA. The personnel had very little clue as to what could be done with village communities, had never interacted much with them and certainly could not be seen as adding value to human resources at the PRI levels.
5
In one field visit, the working group members found that after appointment, the MGNREGA Project Officers and the technical personnel had only been given a two-day orientation on estimation and planning of roads, which they were mechanically applying to the task. In another state, which seemed to have a more structured and better approach to training, the standard interventions of watershed development were being taught to village-level personnel.
31
i) There is also a lack of a certification system whereby teams can be judged to have capability to address the task they are entrusted with. j) Another lacuna relates to the near absence of any kind of role assigned to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in this crucial area. It is quite clear that this is one sphere in which civil society organizations have done well and have the potential to contribute.
3.2 Network of Capacity Building Institutions Given the multi-faceted challenges facing MGNREGA implementation, there is an urgent need to create a proper structure for capacity building at the national, state and district levels. Since several CSOs have done very good work across the country in enabling wage seekers and village communities to access their entitlements under MGNREGA and since CSOs have also had a long history of mobilization, capacity building and support to village communities, capacity building for MGNREGA is one area where CSOs must be invited and mandated to play a role. The proposed structure outlined below will benefit by maximization of CSO participation. There is need to identify at the national level, a network of organizations who can perform the role of creating multiple nuclei of empowerment across the country. It is felt by this Working Group that there needs to be a match between training capabilities of institutions and the constituencies they cater to. Thus for instance, institutions such as NIRD and SIRDs may perhaps be better off catering to the training requirements of government officials such as DPCs, CEOs of Zila Parishads, and Program Officers and so on rather than for implementation teams who are entrusted with the actual field work. In this way these institutions may also find their place in such a national network.
Such institutions have already been listed in the Common Guidelines for Watershed Development of the DoLR. National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI) and its regional centres, Central Research Institute for Dry land Areas (CRIDA), Water Technology Centres (WTCs), Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA),
Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), National Remote
32
Sensing Agency (NRSA), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Soil and Land Use Survey of India (SLUSI) are some of the well known national level institutions that could impart capacity building inputs to senior government officers at national/ state/ district levels.
There are also several reputed voluntary organizations/ resource organizations with considerable expertise and experience related to micro-planning and institution building such as: MKSS (Rajasthan), Hind Swaraj Trust (Maharashtra), AKRSP (Gujarat),
MYRADA
(Karnataka),
WOTR
(Maharashtra),
Dhan
Foundation
(Tamilnadu), Development Support Center (Guajarat), AFARM (Maharashtra), WASSAN (Andhra Pradesh), ARAVALI (Rajasthan), PRADAN (Different states), CYSD (Orissa), Seva Mandir (Rajasthan ), Foundation for Ecological Security (different states), Samaj Pragati Sahyog (MP), SRIJAN (Different States), People's Science Institute, Dehradun, (Uttarakhand, hilly areas), BASIX (different states)
At the national level, an apex body for MGNREGA training needs to be created to anchor the entire training effort for MGNREGA. The Working Group is of the view that this is of critical importance. This is especially because the capacity for capacity building cannot be presumed to exist at the level of states6 and districts but may need to be either created or enhanced significantly. Thus, this effort of capacity building needs to draw upon the best resources across the country and to pool them to create hubs in each state and district of the country which service the aims and objectives of MGNREGA and eventually other social sector interventions (Forest Rights Act and National Food Security Act to name just two). This organization will: •
6
act as a coordinating and anchoring agency between different state level resource centres
Some states may have such capacities but a majority do not seem to, despite presence of infrastructure and monetary allocations. Indeed, if the aim of capacity building is to create human resources capable of applying their minds and skills to any situation or problem arising in a village (not just this or that specific issue about which they are taught in training sessions), it is unclear that such a capacity building has even been attempted since independence.
33
•
help to define and refine training policy at both state and national levels and make training needs assessments
•
act as a clearing house for training material and resources and as a nodal centre actively involved in development and dissemination of training material, methods and resources.
•
identify and mobilize institutions which can play the role of training institutions for MGNREGA across the country
•
define training content and syllabi for different stakeholders
•
draw up a national level training plan for different stages of MGNREGA implementation and for different stakeholders, factoring in state level training plans
•
identify and induct capable CSOs with proven track records, professional agencies, technical institutes and other institutions who can play the role of Lead Resource Centres or Anchor Organizations (AOs) for MGNREGA in different states, with the active participation of the state level training and support organizations
•
ensure that training requirements for MGNREGA are actually being fulfilled across the country as per the training plan
•
monitor the quality of training imparted and make specific, germane recommendations for improvement of the same
•
give clear recommendations and set clear deadlines to state governments who are not acting or complying with the training road map to bring them back on track
•
Seek advice from the Central Employment Guarantee Council as the apex body steering the MGNREGA and report to the CEGC on the action taken by it and state governments in furtherance of its recommendations. A Steering Committee of the CEGC may be formed to oversee the functioning of the NMTSO. This committee may also induct representatives from reputed and prominent CSOs to guide and monitor its work.
Such a network of institutions at the national level could train further organizations and district level technical support resource groups (envisaged under the Operational Guidelines) to provide training and support to implementation teams as well village level workers. District Level
34
At the district level there is need to set up a District MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (DMTSO). The idea of such an organization is contained in the Operational Guidelines (Section 13.4: District Technical Agencies). This organization will act as a master trainer organization which imparts training to block and sub-block implementation teams. The DMTSO may be formed by the state government by inducting full-time dedicated resource persons who will act as master trainers for MGNREGA. The DMTSO will also provide support to Project Implementation Agencies under MGNREGA. The recruitment of such resource persons may be undertaken through the same channels as that of the project implementation teams at block and cluster levels. The DMTSO can be a CSO, provided one of high quality, with impeccable credentials and some experience of planning and execution or working on nature-based livelihoods is available. These CSOs will have to be selected through a rigorous screening process. If credible and capable CSOs are available but have limited capacity to operate at the scale of one or two blocks, then the DMTSO responsibilities for these blocks may be entrusted to them, while the responsibilities for the other blocks may be shouldered by the dedicated master trainers and support personnel.
If technical and professional agencies such as Krishi Vigyan Kendras, agricultural colleges or other are available and can support the core staff of the DMTSO in the performance of their tasks, such support should be actively enlisted. The DMTSO team will be trained by the Network of Institutions identified at the national and state level. If the selected DMTSO already has some experience in training and support for micro-planning, a 20-day Foundation Course may be visualized, followed by another 20-day follow-up module. Otherwise a more rigorous 30-day Foundation Course may be followed up by a 20-day refresher module. An evaluation of the performance of the trainees is a must. This could take the form of a course-end examination as well as concurrent review of trainees on their attitude, skills and behaviour. Both could lead to course-end grades. Certificates clearly stating that the team members have been trained to act as Master Trainers at the district level will be awarded by the SMTSO, mentioning the course-end grades attained, in order to maintain quality of trainers and in the interest of transparency.
35
State Level Training Organisation
At the state level, a State MGNREGA Training and Support Organization (SMTSO) may also be considered to oversee the training functions throughout the state. This should actually be a Consortium of carefully selected CSOs, available professional and technical institutions with practical experience of planning, who will act as Anchor Organizations (AOs), anchoring the training effort at the state level and creating master trainers and master trainer organizations at the district level. Officials of the state government should also be represented in this SMTSO to ensure maximum coordination, mutual accountability and mutual respect. The purpose of this state level consortium could be to create and recognize District MGNREGA Training and Support Organizations (DMTSO) as outlined above. The SMTSO will also help to formulate training courses, syllabi, training material and also set up district-level training resource centres and identify and appoint persons who can run these centres. In case CSOs capable of performing this role at the state level cannot be found, the SMTSO may consider tying up with the SMTSO of another state for the training requirements of their district level resource centres or inviting interested and prominent CSOs from other states identified by the national-level apex body to set up a centre or office in their state to help them in the task of capacity building by playing the role of AOs.
Basic Training Course of Block and and Village Level Teams Attempted below is an operationalization scenario for training of all VDC and block team members: •
Given that there are about 6000 blocks and about 600 districts in the country, the average number of blocks in a district can be taken to be 10.
•
Each block will have on an average 3 Village Development Cluster (VDC) teams. The combined strength of the implementing teams at the block level and VDC level comes to about 18 personnel (see Chapter 2
36
of this report) in each block at the cutting edge of implementation whose training needs will have to be taken care of. •
With 10 blocks on an average, this means 180 persons. In the first year, the VDC/block teams must undergo a Basic Training Course (BTC) of at least 30 days' duration at the DMTSC. If these 180 persons were to attend the BTC at the DMTSC in batches of 36 (which is an ideal number in terms of trainers being able to attend to trainees), at least 5 batches will have to be trained. This means 5 months of the year.
•
Another two months should be reserved for refresher courses or specialized courses, orientations, workshops, meetings etc. This leaves about 5 months for field support work.
•
At least two field support visits for each VDC of about 7 days each visit must be envisioned. These field support visits will double up as on-site training for the VDC and Block teams, so that the training imparted at the DMTSO will be followed up with on-site training, support and handholding for plan preparation and execution. . A system may be envisioned whereby during the BTC, trainers set the team members practical tasks which the team members have to fulfill by the time of the support visit.
•
In this support visit, a team comprising at least two members from the DMTSO should visit the VDC. In 5 months about 10 VDC field sites can be effectively visited by one team.
•
Since there are about 10 blocks per district on an average, we have 30 VDC teams and 30 VDC field sites. Thus 3 support teams of 2 support persons each at the DMTSC will be able to carry out this workload.
The capacity building of village level community mobilizers can further be undertaken by the implementation team itself, once it is prepared and certified to be prepared. Over time the capacity building and support requirements for MGNREGA will go down or change in character to encompass more areas such as convergence with other programmes and entitlements under other social sector. A system of certification will be established at this level too, whereby the DMTSO will conduct concurrent and course-end evaluation of the implementation team members
37
during the BTC and the on-site field training, on the basis of which a certificate may be issued to the team member, mentioning the grade attained.
The Working Group also recommends that there should also be a space within the operational guidelines wherein CSOs with capacity and calibre can actually function as project implementation teams as well.
.3 Costs Some estimated costs of the DMTSO and the costs of training to be conducted by them have been attempted by the Working Group. It is estimated that provisioning for such a training structure down the line will come to less than 1% of the MGNREGA budget. This cost is expected to decline after the initial years since the more critical handholding requirements will be in the first and second years. However, this 1% of MGNREGA funds needs to be seen as an investment in the future of not only MGNREGA but virtually all rural development interventions since this small amount can effectively mean a very big difference to the total expenditure made and the quality of outcomes thereof. It is recommended therefore that the Operational Guidelines be suitably modified to cater for such expenditure. Where CSOs are inducted for the task of training DMTSOs or play the role of DMTSOs, their training and staff expenses should also be taken care of. The Working Group also takes cognizance of the fact that there is a proposal to create RUDSETI type of institutions at the district level for the NRLM. Possibilities of convergence in terms of infrastructure and human resources for training should be explored so that facilities and human capabilities are used for wage employment programmes to be effectively converged. With MGNREGA effectively providing financial resources for work on the ground which can make an irreversible change to the poverty situation in the country, the case for multilateral donor or aid agencies providing support to the GoI for the “software” portion of MGNREGA is considerably strengthened. This is because the small percentage of funds invested by such agencies in ensuring human resource
38
allocation, capacity building has the potential of leveraging benefits which are several-fold. Such investments are also a step towards ensuring better quality of programme execution, better outcomes from public investment and improvement in the human resource and skill base of the country which is in the form of a permanent investment. Possibilities of inviting such grants-in-aid should be explored. Possibilities of Public-Private-Partnership may also be explored with Indian companies who may see such investment in human resources as part of their CSR and may like to participate either at the state or at the district level by contributing resources. However, such participation should be to ensure that the quality of MGNREGA is improved as per the road map prepared by the NTMSO and approved by the CEGC.
3.4 Quality Issues in Civil Society Participation Within the Working Group there is a shared concern with respect to both participation of Civil Society Organizations and the quality of CSOs with whom partnerships are forged for executing the above recommendations. The Working Group is of the view that there is every need to mainstream high quality CSOs with proven track record into this nation-wide training and capacity building effort. The Working Group considers it fit to particularly mention the efforts made by states such as Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in this regard. While the former has entered into agreements with civil society organizations to partner the state governments, the latter has initiated programmes of natural resource management and convergence with a clear policy on CSO participation. The Working Group also is clear that while bringing CSOs on board, there is need to ensure the highest standards of CSO accountability a concern which has also been voiced by several state governments. However, it has also noted with concern that in discussions with some state governments on this issue, the attitude has sometimes tended to border on throwing the baby out with the bath water and characterizing all CSO participation as a non-starter. It is the understanding of this Working Group that this situation has arisen only partly because of quality of CSOs themselves. It stems
39
in a major part due to an apprehension that their own systems are not geared up enough to keep undesirable elements out of the process.
Discussions of the Working Group with CSOs of different hues and calling have underlined the need for CSO participation and the Working Group recognizes the truly excellent work done by several such organizations in mobilization, participatory planning, execution, social audit and so on. Such CSOs have also cited numerous instances of violations by local administrations or implementation interfaces which have been brought to light by them and which have also led to problems for them. They also cite the fact that their role is not mandated by any formal institutional space within the framework of the Act. As a result, there is also a constant hurdle faced by them of convincing local administrations about their participation and their locus standi. The Working Group is of the view that concerns on both sides may be addressed by adopting an approach which puts premium on quality and provides an autonomous and institutionalized space for the selection and functioning of CSOs. This will ensure to high quality CSOs a space where they can work smoothly and will also ensure a fallback mechanism for them if and when local conditions turn “difficult” for no fault of theirs. The process will also facilitate and strengthen the selection process of CSOs by state governments. This can be done by the National Level body responsible for training leading a joint, two-stage selection and evaluation process, wherein the first round of screening and shortlisting is done by the concerned state level agency and the final round of screening is done by the body with oversight by its Steering Committee. In order to arrive at such a decision, a panel of carefully selected evaluators who evaluate the work of these CSOs should be used. A highlevel search committee may be formed which looks into the issue of empanelment of evaluators. In this entire scheme of things, CAPART could also potentially play a role. However, for this fundamental structural changes will have to take place in the institution in order for it to do justice to this role. The Working Group recommends that this institutional reform process in CAPART should be completed as a precondition to its partnership in the process
40
3.5 Designating Institutions as Training and Certification Institutions for MGNREGA Given the urgent need for human resources of quality for the implementation of MGNREGA, the above recommendations point to a medium-term approach to solving the problem, by first matching the supply with demand and then training this supply. However, it needs to be recognized that the creation of human resources is going to challenge MGNREGA implementation constantly. There is thus a need to create a longer term plan for provisioning human resources steadily. This calls for a creation of a human resource pool which may be drawn upon when needed. This Working Group recommends that CSOs identified through the rigorous process described above may be formally recognized as Training Institutions for MGNREGA, with the provision that they can organize and carry out diploma courses for MGNREGA, which are recognized. Such a recognition must only be made for those CSOs who have the capability and practical field implementation experience to play this role. Tie-ups of such CSOs with technical colleges and institutes at state and national level may be further promoted so that students can carry out this diploma course as part of their formal degree course by requesting a field placement or an internship. The duration for such a course should be 6 months to a year and a rigorous system of trainee evaluation should be part of this system.
3.6 Capacity Building Reforms for Strengthening Panchayati Panchayati Raj Panchyati Raj and MGNREGA: Capacity Building reforms for PRIs The Panchayats at district, intermediate and village levels are the principal authorities for the planning and implementation of NREGA under Section 13 of the Act. The main responsibilities of PRIs are outlined in the Sections 13 to 17 (salient features at Annex. I). It is worth recalling here that (i) at least 50 percent of MGNREGA funds are to be spent directly by the Gram Panchayats (GPs), (ii) the Gram Sabhas (GSs) are to recommend specific projects to the GPs and conduct social audit of MGNREGA works, (iii) the District Programme Coordinators and Programme Officers are to assist the District and Intermediate Panchayats respectively in the discharge of their functions. These features of NREGA offer a unique opportunity to strengthen and enable PRIs, particularly the GPs and GSs. The rejuvenated and enabled Panchayats, in turn, can become powerful instruments in making MGNREGA a great success. It is
41
generally seen that States with vibrant and optimally sized Panchayats with requisite manpower have implemented MGNREGA better. For instance, the success of MGRNEGA in Rajasthan is positively correlated with the success of Panchayats in ushering in a new era of decentralization of power which is also turbocharged by new forms of associational energy and public activism. But it is worth recalling here that while panchayats are the primary planning and implementation agency for the MGNREGS, but they are often overburdened without requisite capacity to implement various development programs. There are more than 200 central schemes for rural areas and panchayats have to implement over three-fourths of them. Additionally, the Bharat Nirman programme has a component to be implemented through panchayats. The Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) is also to be implemented by panchayats alone. In a sample study done in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, the World Bank found that, on average, a village sarpanch or official has to keep track of 470 accounts and deal with 17 line departments involving 50 officials. Not only Panchayats are overburdened and understaffed but their critical deliberative and delivery institutions are also not functioning optimally and effectively. The working group has observed in its field visits in states that Gram Sabha rarely meets and occasionally performs its assigned statutory functions in the Act. Therefore, a better symbiosis between the NREGs and PRIs offers a unique opportunity to strengthen & enable PRIs with necessary manpower and infrastructure and in turn the enabled PRIs can become more powerful instrument in making the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA a much better success. The Working Group, based on the field visits and also interactions with key stakeholders that include Ministry of Panchyati Raj, would like to suggest some policy steps for more effective integration of PRIs in the implementing architecture of MGRNEGA;
1. Converting PRIs into Mission Mode:
“Panchayat Empowerment & Accountability Incentive Scheme” of MoPR ( Ministry of Panchyati Raj) may be made an integral part of the Mission. More importantly, the National Capacity Building Framework (NCBF) of MoPR needs to be integrated into the implementation of MGNREGA. As NCBF’s objectives include (a) enabling elected representatives to upgrade their knowledge and skills to better perform their responsibilities, (b) orienting the officials to become more effective technical advisors and implementers of the ideas emerging from the elected representatives, (c) improving the functioning of the Gram Sabha as an important institution of local decision making” etc. it is crucial that NCBF is implemented by the states for enhancing the performance of MGNREGA. 2. Following Maharashtra Experience, state governments need to make six meetings of Gram Sabha as mandatory for enhancing the implementation of MGNREGA. Necessary amendments in the Constitution may be made in this regard. 3. For activation of Gram Sabha, Self-help groups of women may be given a salutatory role by state governments; the meeting of Mahila Groups must precede the meeting of Gram Sabha. Since MoPR (GoI) has already declared 2010 as the “Year of Gram Sabha”, we recommend adopting a “campaign mode of activation of Gram Sabha” with the help of leading civil
42
society groups in a select panchayats in the country. An Expert groups needs to be formed to formulate the moblizational strategy in this regard. 4. Borrowing from Kerala experience, a campaign mode of decentralization must accompany the implementation of MGRNEGA in various states. Either transfer cadre (Kerala model) or create a new cadre for PRI( Bihar model): Learning from Kerala experience, the Working Group suggests that even while the State Government is the staff-creating and cadre-controlling authority, PRIs need to have full freedom in assigning work, supervising its execution, reviewing performance and even imposing minor punishments, if required. In future there should not be any permanent recruitment by the State Govt. for panchayati raj cadre. Instead Gram Panchayat needs to hire local cadre on contractual basis. On successful completion of contract for 35 years, local cadre will become eligible for permanent Govt. employee in future. A proper HR policy must back these measures. 5. Social Audit and participatory planning from MGNREGA could be used for enhancing financial and social accountability through due process in budgeting, transparency in decision making, particularly in selection of beneficiaries and in expenditures and mandatory reporting of performance to constituents. 6. Urgent steps need be taken to deploy essential staff such as Accountants, Gram Rozgar Sewaks, “Barefoot Engineers”, Data Entry Operators, Coordinators for social audit and grievance redressal etc. according to the need/size/terrain etc. of the Panchayats; MGNREGA Staff need not to be used as ‘proxy staff’ for Panchayats but as “ supplemental support systems”. 7. Role clarity: Key GP functionaries should be familiarized with their roles and responsibilities along with precise accountability. This may be facilitated through clear “Job Charts”. A system of modest honorarium and travel expenses need to be considered for representatives of PRIs. This can be financed from levy of local taxes by PRI. 8. Technical Manuals: The working group has noted that training material of a good quality is a gap that needs to be filled urgently, the efforts of a few CSOs, with the support of MoRD in this direction notwithstanding. Technical manuals for MGNREGA works need to be developed in a user-friendly format to facilitate GPs and GSs in the planning and implementation of Act. Some useful technical booklets, films, posters, etc., have already been developed by reputed NGOs such as PRADAN and Samaj Pragati Sahayog. The manuals prepared by MKKS and Right to Food Activists may also be used for MGNREGA. 9. It is recommended that as a first step, the good quality print and video training/awareness material available should be identified and translated into different regional languages and printed. State governments should be encouraged pro-actively to use them at the block and GP level. 10. Further, the apex body to be constituted at the national level should induct CSOs and domain experts to identify gaps in the training material and assess the needs of different stakeholders w.r.t. training resource material. On the basis of such an assessment, preparation of fresh resource material may be commissioned in different languages. The possibilities of e-learning portals
43
on MGNREGA, along with interactive e-courses on CDROM should also be explored. Finally, e-networks such as the National Knowledge Network should also be used for capacity building purposes.
11. Media(Electronic and print) and Community Radio: Rural newspapers such as ‘Khabar Lahariya, run by women in places like Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh needs to be given special support for promoting awareness about the employment guarantee Program by MoPR and MoRD.. Similarly, community radio and community video volunteers need to be used for monitoring and social audit of MGNREGA. Technical and financial support to promote rural media needs to be supported under the administrative expenses and states need to be given flexibility to rely on local, indigenous resources. 12. Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras: Infrastructural and Moblizational Capacity Building Support for PRIs ;The construction of Bhart Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra’ under schedule I para 1(g) at the Gram Panchyat and Block level vide notification no. S.O. 2877(E) dated 11/11/2009( MoRD) is a much needed step to bridge the gaps/shortages in ‘infrastructural resources’ for Panchayati Raj Institutions and also provide additional support facilities for establishing dedicated office of MGNREGA for implementation at the GP and Block level. As we know that there are about 40% of Panchayats in the country without any building for office space; several states barring Kerala have long been demanding infrastructural and human resource support for robust functioning of PRIs. The Working Group agrees with the policy guidelines of constructing Bhart Nirman RGSK and supports the construction of BNRGSK on a priority basis over the next three years as a major capacity building initiatives under MGRNEGA for realisation of the rights of labourers and reenergizing PRIs in the implementation of MGNREGA. The major capacity building activities at the Gram Panchyat/ Block level could easily be placed. BNRGSV should be equipped with telephones, photocopiers, fax machines etc. This will function as an ICT enabled “Knowledge Resource Center” or “Public Facilitation Centres’ where MGNREGA labourers can submit applications for job cards, works, Muster roll scrutiny, Complaints and interact with MGNREGA staff/personnel along with representatives from PRIs. This will also enable mobilization of labourers through the proposed scheme of Lok Sevak/Lok Karmis for social audit. The grievances may be transferred to the concerned NREGA authorities and Ombudsman for disposal. Software on People’s Information System with touch screen facilities may be developed and hosted in these centres to ensure quick delivery of information and recording of public views and complaints. Toll free helpline services can also be provided at the RGSK and also be equipped with the facility to facilitate coordination with the Media, organize visits of media persons to worksites, track media stories on MGNREGA
44
implementation and refer them to the MGNREGA Authorities for verification. BNRGSK will also function as Single window information centre for all MGNREGA related information, and most importantly, all training and capacity building efforts could be organized at BNRGSK at the GP and block level. Additionally, BNRGSK will also help set the tone for facilitating the implementation of Panchyati Raj activities into a ‘Mission Mode’. 11. National Institute of Panchayati Raj;The working group recommends setting up a National Institute of Panchayati Raj for greater convergence between MoRD and MoPR and develop an integrated framework of capacity building on every aspect of village life which impacts PRIs and implementation of MGNREGA. Since there is no National level or apex institution to guide, coordinate, monitor and integrate the various activities of the PRIs, the implementation of MGNREGA misses out on the strategic support from PRIs. The coordination between NIRD and a National Institute of Panchayati Raj will lead to greater coordination on issues of training needs assessment (TNA), capacity assessment (CA), networking with NGO partners, sharing of best practices, training of trainers (ToT), and module development etc. in the planning, implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA.
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CHAPTER – IV
A New Cyberstructure for MGNREGA: ICT/GIS BASED CAPACITY BUILDING REFORMS
Information Technology for Management Support Apart from implementation, a critical role in ensuring entitlements under MGNREGA is that of monitoring. To ensure timely delivery of deliverables in any egovernance initiative, concurrent monitoring is a must. In this endeavour, apart from professional assistance that IT for MGNREGA becomes crucial in ensuring best results. Already, the IT system for MGNREGA is a pioneer in terms of the huge amount of information that it has warehoused and made available. We look at how this good start could be made better. The potential advantage of using IT systems for governance lies in: 1. the speed with which data can be processed and made available in meaningful forms 2. the availability of data nearly concurrently with its online updation/entry through networks, so that information is available pro-actively and to a larger audience (in a paper system, this information would have to be dug out to become available) 3. the breaking of artificial barriers of geography, boundaries etc. to flow of information (in paper systems such boundaries do not automatically break there therefore a systemic support for information suppression)
46
Of these, the last two are key to engendering transparency and together all three make for contributions in governance which only IT make. Thus, IT systems can become tremendous potential allies in concurrent monitoring, enabling preventives to be placed in line before situations deteriorate. They can also directly enable attaining entitlements and finally, they can become potent tools for grievance redressal
4.1 Usefulness of IT in the MGNREGA Context We look at the present status of IT systems in the MGNREGA context and discuss how it can be improved. The following table illustrates the broad stages of MGNREGA workflow and the requirements of different stakeholders. MGNREGA Workflow and Stakeholder Expectations from IT Stakeholders and Objectives of IT Use Wage Seekers
Implementors
Monitors/ Grievance Redressers
Primary Objective: Getting Entitlement in the Act
Primary Objective: Implementing and Planning Work to Fulfill Legal Mandate
Primary Objective:
Stages of MGNREGA 7 Workflow
What IT must Enable to Fulfill these Objectives
•
Worker registration and issue of job cards
•
•
Work demand applications
•
•
Planning and 8 estimation
•
Sanction of
Monitor Programme for Quality, Smooth Out Bottlenecks and Ensure that Entitlements Reach Wage Seekers on Time
•
demand for work must be visible to implementor work must be provided within the stipulated time wages for work done should be paid transparently,
•
•
•
that information of work demand reaches them estimates and plans are drawn up in the shortest possible time to meet this demand estimates of
•
•
availability of updated information which is as close to reality as possible tracking of the implementation of the MGNREGA schemes as they go from
7
This does not attempt to capture all complexities involved in the work flow but is offered more by way of illustration. A more detailed discussion on the workflow (as analyzed for the APREGS) can be found in Tata Consultancy Services (2006)
8
Although shown in a sequence, planning and estimation are not activities that need to wait for work demand . Nor should work demand be contingent upon work estimates prepared which seems to be the de facto situation today, because proper shelves of work rarely exist. So work demand on the MIS is always made equal to the work supplied by the simple method of normally entering work demand when a particular work has been estimated and sanctioned
47 work •
Estimating material requirements
•
Start of work
•
Daily attendance and preparation of muster rolls
•
Measurement and valuation at fixed intervals
•
Preparation of pay order
•
Payment to wage-seekers through bank accounts
•
Accounts/book keeping
•
•
without any leakages and preferably at the doorstep work done must be visible to monitors to ensure that entitlements are fairly met non-fulfilment of demand or noncompliance with legal requirements of wage payments should become known to monitors for concurrent redressal
•
•
•
•
cost are not bloated the process of sanctions and releases is expedited work is started with minimum delay worker payments are made within a stipulated time wage payments reach workers and fraud and fudging is rooted out
stage to stage
However, for IT to be able to deliver along the above lines a necessary condition is that it becomes central to the workflow and is tightly integrated end to end. In mixed mode systems, IT often ends up being an appendage to the main workflow which is carried out through the normal channels of paper. Under the circumstances there is no a-priori reason to presume that the information in the IT system is up to date. Hence the cutting edge advantage is lost. In addition, for maximization of benefits, it requires a system that is real time and online. The first is a case for better use of IT. The second requires better connectivity backbones and hardware and innovations to ensure that more and more such aspects of work are brought under the purview of IT which are traditionally thought of as belonging to the domain of notesheets and files. Both of the above lead to a situation that enables information to be as fresh as possible across a network and thus enable tighter monitoring. We discuss below some possible directions in which IT systems need to move (and are already moving in some states), with the recommendation that the MGNREGA implementation and monitoring system is strengthened by mainstreaming these. Where needed, the MoRD needs to build partnerships and common steering groups in order to enable this, such as with the UIDAI. Online Real Time Work Demand A common issue with work demand is that work demand is not immediately visible on the MIS. It is equal to the work supplied because entries are made post-
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facto. It is also quite common for functionaries to refuse to entertain work demand applications because of lack of adequate preparedness to open works. Under the circumstances, information on real work demand may be suppressed. In terms of IT for monitoring, the issue is to make this work demand visible as soon as it arises. If MGNREGA correspondents with a handlheld or a computer are available even within the perimeter of the GVS or the Block, the application can be made online. For those monitoring the system, this is enough information to trigger needed oversight functions. A cellphone based online work demand application system can be worked out wherein a short message from a wage seeker's cellphone in a predefined format lodges itself on a server at the state level. The PO's office, which is also part of the network takes cognizance of the application and ensures that employment is provided. It needs to be emphasized here that from the viewpoint of IT for monitoring MGNREGA, the sanctity of the work demand application is unquestionable. Since this is the demand which the entire system is geared to provide and is thereby a monitoring yardstick against which the sluggishness of the delivery system needs to be measured. Similarly, the opening of works is again an event which is recorded post-facto along with wage payments. If the initial work demand is visible, the system will be able to flag any delays in subsequent stages and raise the necessary alerts down the line. Online Real Time Grievance Redressal A similar system can be visualized for complaints and their redressal. Either they are entered through handhelds or directly by the wage seeker through her cellphone and the complaint is lodged to a central server. A recent move in Uttar Pradesh to enable a cellphone based complaints and grievance redressal system is on simlar lines (see Seth, 2009) The major contribution of such IT reforms will be to ensure greater and tighter monitoring of MGNREGA work so that essential parameters of timely delivery are ensured. It will also support, by making available current information for public scrutiny such as social audits. Together with decentralisation of implementation, this is the second step in ensuring that the core objectives of MGNREGA are met. Real Time Online Muster Rolls, Work Attendance and Measurements A system can be visualized whereby handhelds are issued to field workers under MGNREGA, and muster rolls are directly updated online to the state-level servers by biometric identification of the workers who are present on site. Such an immediate updation will go a long way in aiding concurrent monitoring. In fact, the paper muster roll can be a print out of the online muster. Fitted with GPS and webcam facilities, the system should further aid in verification of the work being done on the site at which is reportedly being done. It seems that this has also already
49
been piloted in different states by the MoRD. The results of this pilot should be made public and appropriate policies framed on the feedback. Alternatively, all job card holders in a village are loaded in the registered mobile available with the field assistant. Each day, for each work, the muster attendance is easily registered name-wise and sent to the central computer by a compressed SMS system. Details of the number of workers at each work-site can be queried both on the website and through SMS by any interested public for verification. The verification teams use this extensively to weed out any bogus muster rolls. Each technical assistant responsible for taking measurements is given a mobile phone where measurements are recorded and sent by compressed SMS to the central server along with GPS coordinates. This will ensure that the TAs visit the work site and avoids delay in processing the payments at the mandal computer centers
4.2 Biometrics and UID-Enabled IT Application Layer for MGNREGA Each of the online systems referred to above can use the authentication mechanism proposed under the UIDAI. Non-repudiable, de-duplicable and possibly bi-directional9 authentication mechanisms, with a facility for beneficiaries locking their identification information10 have been mooted as part of the UIDAI design. This has the potential of engendering far greater transparency than a paper based system which is far more susceptible to identity fraud. Simultaneously, this mechanism can also ensure that crucial data are concurrently available for monitoring. The identity can function as a single window for the entitlements of the poor not only under MGNREGA but all government schemes such as the proposed Food Security Act, health care, education and so on. The business of manual updation of job cards and
9
A bi-directional authentication mechanism can potentially prevent identity fraud made possible through system crackers cracking the handheld device used for authentication and using it to spoof identity. Consider the following: the UID holder (say a MGNREGA worker) authenticates against the UID servers through her biometrics. The equipment used to facilitate this authentication may be a handheld device. The underlying technology used in the device may be cracked by malicious crackers to spoof the identity. Under the circumstances, a bi-directional authentication mechanism also authenticates the handheld device for its genuineness and integrity.
10
Once the transaction is over, the beneficiary, using her identification mechanism, locks her identity data. Essentially, this means that only she can herself unlock it, thus preventing unauthorized access, misuse and possible encroachments on privacy.
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the consequent bad practices of some people keeping workers cards can potentially become redundant. The technology architecture of UID is geared towards using biometrics11 based authentication systems on the basis of a unique identity number. The system is proposed to guarantee maximum accuracy when it is used online. It is quite clear from the UIDAI design architecture that smartcard technologies are not part of the architecture. The authentication mechanism is biometric based and does not need smart cards. Further, differing backend technologies for smartcard-based authentication, or any other design point which violates the fundamental principles of open standards and interoperability are unacceptable to the UID design. Since UID is going to be the identity proving mechanism in the not-too-distant future, its relationship with any application layer in the social sector becomes critical and synergistic. Critical because (1) any non-UID based authentication architecture potentially faces the problem of non-conformance and redundancy in the not-toodistant future; and (2) if the MGNREGA IT architecture is not sufficiently prepared for the backend authentication proposed by the UID, there will be problems. Synergistic because the sort of connectivity backbone that is required to make UID authentication foolproof will also benefit MGNREGA. It is this Working Group's recommendation that a coordination mechanism between MGNREGA and UID is pro-actively worked out by MoRD. It is on the basis of this understanding that a clear IT plan to be rolled out should be made so that MGNREGA has strategically positioned itself to maximize the wage-seeker's benefits. Another advantage of a single unified identification mechanism is in its potential to make possible digital sanctions and orders by providing a mechanism for non-repudiable authentication of any transaction. This can greatly speed up processing of work flows at critical points and its uses for MGNREGA also need to be explored.
4.3 Banking Correspondent Model Labour payments in MGNREGA through banks or post office accounts12 have been made compulsory since 2008. With 80 million MGNREGA wage seeker bank accounts opened and 80% of MGNREGA wage payments already being made through this route, MGNREGA has ushered in unprecedented financial inclusion.
11
There is also considerable debate around the use of biometrics and its efficacy in a high-volume transaction environment. The GoI has set up a Committee for framing the Biometric Standards for UID has also been set up (http://uidai.gov.in/documents/Biometric%20Standards%20Committee%20Notification.pdf)
12
In this section, the term "bank" is used to mean banks and post offices
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Under the circumstances, it is desirable to think of ways in which the problems in the system are taken care of such as: •
There are not enough bank branches to deal with the number of wageseeker accounts that need to be created.
•
The accounts, if created, have a lot of paper work associated with them and banks are understaffed to take on this load, or otherwise do not see it as a profitable enough proposition.
•
At payment time, there are a large number of wage-seekers who come for cash withdrawal to cater to by a very small staff.
•
Panchayats too do not have the human resources to help wageseekers with all the paper formalities that banks require to be completed
•
wage-seekers are often not aware of bank procedures and do not know how to use their accounts
•
bank branches are located at a large distance from where the workers live, so it is difficult for the to make frequent trips. For wage-seekers under NREGA, frequent cash withdrawals are necessitated because this cash is used to facilitate day to day consumption
most shockingly, there may arise different types of collusion mechanisms to beat the system. A "good samaritan" in the village can volunteer to make withdrawals on behalf of several villagers. He can collect their passbooks, get withdrawal slips signed, fill in one amount and give the wage-seeker another, or ask for a cut for his services. Even more serious cases are cited where for instance, contractors get bank accounts opened in the name of the wage-seekers without their knowledge. He then, along with the panchayat sewak fabricates muster rolls. Whatever money is transferred to the bank accounts of the labourers is eaten up by the two and unscrupulous elements in the bank Despite its various problems, everyone (including the villagers themselves) are agreed that payment through bank transfers is a good thing and must stay. Its basic premises of separating those in-charge of work execution from those in-charge of payments and doing away with the handling of cash is fundamentally sound. Here the role of Information Technology is being leveraged. All payments with effect from March 2011 needs to be done in the village using bio-metric identification process through smart cards. Under this, each beneficiary is issued a biometric smart card (finger print technology) at the village level. In each village, Banks place a Customer Service Provider (CSP) identified by the banker equipped with a smart card reader networked to the bank server. Each beneficiary is given a bank account after biometric authentication by the bank. All disbursements are credited •
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electronically to the accounts of the beneficiaries. Banks arrange cash to the CSP using a Business Correspondent (BC). The MIS showing disbursement is available online. A printer may give out details of the transaction as a paper record. While extending the BC model to MGNREGA beneficiaries, a critical issue is one of accountability, transparency and oversight. If individuals are chosen as BCs there is a risk of unwanted practices setting in because of a lack of strong regulatory mechanisms. There is also a risk that influential village persons may be found fit to become BCs, which may actually be opening a backdoor entry channel for moneylenders or may otherwise be discriminatory against the poor. A possible solution to this issue which takes care of the accountability concerns while using the BC model to the MGNREGA worker's advantage, may be to harness the BC function within the MGNREGA's Project Officer and VDC Team. Thus the PO's office and its associated VDCs are institutional BCs and it is the institution which is responsible for the individuals carrying out the interface at the village level.
4.4 Asset Management System for MGNREGA Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group recommends setting up ICT/GIS enabled Assets Management System for MGNREGA. (AMS).( Ref to Appendix on the Workshop). This may be anchored /located in the Independent Research and Evaluation Division at the proposed Jaipur branch of NIRD (MoRD). Annual census of Assets of MGNREGA and regular updates on the progress of works could easily be monitored by the proposed AMS. This policy recommendation is in line with discussion being initiated by MoRD (Ref to 5Feb2010 MoRD Workshop on Decentralized Planning and Monitoring) A Public – Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. The district administration with the help of ICT enabled ‘Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras ‘(RGSKs) at the panchayat and block levels would uplink the AMS to NREGA division of MoRD. In view of enormous size, complexity of implementing MGNREGA in diverse social, political and geo-climatic conditions and challenges of transparency and accountability, the Working Group recommends state governments to make best use of latest Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and frontier technologies like GIS to help ensuring effective planning, implementation and proper management of the programme and to bring transparency and accountability at all levels of implementation. Since MGNREGA is not only about wage payment but also about creating ‘durable assets’, (Section 2 Schedule1), census of asset on a continuous basis has emerged a major challenge. Let us not forget that MGNREGA
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has increasingly come under serious criticism for undertaking unviable and untraceable works. Planning Commission of India in its studies have pointed that the actual ground level status of works is unknown in most cases unless physical verification is carried out. Therefore, the Working Group suggests setting up a robust and dynamic ICT/GIS enabled “Assest Management System’ as one of the most crucial ‘second generation reforms” for making MGNREGA a great success! Based on Working Group’s field visits in different states, interaction with different key stakeholders and also a workshop help at NIRD on 14 May 2010, the Working Group favours Assets Management System being anchored /located in the ‘Monitoring and Evaluation’ Division at the proposed Jaipur branch of NIRD (MoRD) or alternatively ‘Technical Secretariat’ of MGNREGA at MoRD. Annual census of Assets of MGNREGA and regular updates on the progress of works could easily be monitored by the proposed AMS. This policy recommendation is in line with discussion being initiated by MoRD (Ref; MoRD Workshop 14 Feb/2010). A Public – Private Partnership (PPP) framework needs to be created for accessing and using the best skills, tools and technologies for developing and maintaining Assets Management System. As mentioned in the ToR’s section a, subsection (iii) for “Strengthening Administrative systems at all levels”, creating Assets Management System is intended to enhance the capacity of existing administrative systems for efficient, effective and transparent delivery and tracking systems in MGNREGA. The Asset Management System will also support and promote application of various other ICT/GIS technologies for better implementation of MGNREGA in the country. Policy Implications of applying ICT/GIS tools for MGNREGA Many states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, UP, West Bengal, Kerala, etc. have started using ICT tools like smart cards and hand held devices for the wage disbursement. ICT initiatives like Smart Cards have the potential to capture details of the Workers, Work and Wages (WWW) including the muster rolls and the job cards. One innovative aspect of smart cards and hand held devices are to use them, from wage disbursement to make them operate like a Job card, so that all transactions of MGNREGA programme be captured, like: registration, Job card, demand for work, issue of dated receipt, allotment of work, entry into muster roll like attendance from the field through hand held devices, which will be able to record latitude and longitude of the area, ensuring presence of worker at the worksite and using biometric based technology or through low cost ATMs. Among ICT initiatives, the Smart card and hand held devices have additional advantage of capturing delays and can be updated instantly in the MIS and accessible to the beneficiaries as well as the public, enhancing the management and monitoring of the programmes. Geospatial technologies play a key role in generating timely and reliable information for planning and decision making at all the levels, i.e., from macro to micro. Even though it is widely recognized that Geographic Information System (GIS) has the capacity to analyse both spatial and non-spatial data including temporal aspects in a cost-effective and efficacious manner, its application at micro-level for utilities planning and resource management is fast emerging with the advancement of GPS
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and High Resolution Satellite Data. Planning at micro-level, a village is considered to be a viable micro-administrative unit and development of spatial database infrastructure at village level will help in inventorying these resources into micro-level database, which can be a emerging potential technology tool for MGNREGS for effective planning, implementation and proper management of the Programme The GIS based integrated geo-database at village level consisting of various thematic maps (e.g., village boundary map, block/tehsil boundaries maps, etc.), demographic data, socio-economic data and data related to infrastructural facilities (e.g., roads, educational facilities, health facilities, drinking water, power supply, etc.), proves a critical base for judicious decision making and realtime applications at village level. A GIS based spatial model identifies the spatial gaps for provision of basic facilities and to propose new village locations for providing additional infrastructure by effective implementation of development programmes and policies. It is expected that user friendly GIS based spatial data infrastructure generated at microadministrative unit will increase the efficacy of administration and resource mobilization as well as help in informed decision-making, thus generation of a Geographical Information System (GIS) based for Micro-level Planning evolving an application areas of Participatory GIS, for identifying strategies for community empowerment. Thus GIS offers solutions for social, rural development planning and provides an opportunity for Panchayats for integrated local development. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is an example of frontier technology, promoting the concept of convergence. Systems developed with integration of spatial and non-spatial data, has brought a paradigm shift in implementation of GIS technology by extensive use of Satellite Remote Sensing, Global Positioning and other mobile mapping technologies. With power of integration, GIS today is being considered the nerve system for planning and has been providing effective services around the world. Visualization of terrain through high resolution satellites data, aerial pictures or maps, LIDAR captures spatial data. Embedded in GIS with nonspatial information has brought revolutionary changes in the implementation of traditional Management Information System (MIS). The power of visualization not only projects the ground reality, but also is capable of validating data. Possible Areas of ICT & GIS intervention An ICT and GIS interventions in the implementation of NREGA is important from the following perspective: k) ICT & GIS ensures transparency and help in information dissemination (b) An ICT & GIS tools are required because the size of the programme is very large, not only from the geographical and financial perspective but from the perspective of the size of the target group of beneficiaries as well. l) ICT & GIS facilitates online monitoring and evaluation of the programme. The timely feedback helps in timely corrective actions. m) An ICT & GIS tools help in social audits whereby the local bodies and citizens may actually audit the programme at their end.
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n) ICT& GIS plays important role every phase of the implementation of the MGNREGA. Communication & Mobilization 4. Some of the ICT interventions that can be possibly used for communication & mobilization include community radio, television, public address systems, panchayat websites and the Internet to publicize the NREGA. 5. Information kiosks that have been set up in some villages and the 100,000 Common Service Centres being implemented by the Dept. of IT can be used as focal points to disseminate information on the scheme. 6. Village Resource Centre which has both communication and GIS and Satellite Remote Sensing based resource information on various works undertaken under MGNREGS for planning, implementation and monitoring. Planning Phase 1.
2.
3.
Creation of a database of durable, productive, labour-intensive works at Panchayat level. Mapping out socially productive and durable assets/infrastructure which can be created in the respective zones/clusters. Issuing of job cards, digitization of muster rolls, persons employed, their output, wage rates, working hours etc can also be available for verification by the Panchayats, peers and the community through the use of ICT & GIS The use of Smart Cards/Biometric cards to identify and track every beneficiary in the region and can be integrated with GIS.
Execution of Works •
•
•
Works Management System with authentic records of the attendance at the worksites with simultaneous updating of the employment records is necessary. Works identified in a particular block to be taken up under the scheme must be available for viewing and measurement by all Panchayats within that block. Work Flow Automation System may be introduced since the approval of works, allocation of works to an implementing agency etc. must be sanctioned by the Programme Officer or such local authority (including the Panchayats at the district, intermediate or village level). Disbursement of wages and unemployment allowance.
Monitoring
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1. ICT provides for ensuring that the members of the designated rural household are only availing the guarantee of 100 days of employment and their wage employment rights are not being misused by others. Biometric systems like fingerprint recognition may be used as potential solutions to address this issue. A fingerprint recognition based time and attendance system at the front-end backed by a comprehensive computerized MIS at the back-end may be able to address the issue. 2. Geographical Information System – The use of GIS can greatly enhance the monitoring of the NREGS. Digital maps can be made available for viewing to show the assets that have been created under the scheme and provide for the assessment of the quality of assets created. Grievance Redressal System Citizens registration of grievances at all Panchayat Levels and in offices of the Programme Officer and the District Programme Coordinator, made available online. 1. Citizens to track their grievances online. 2. Number of households demanding jobs and number of households who have been issued job cards. 3. Avoiding payment of unemployment allowance, whoever is provided a job is registered. 4. Variations in wage rates paid State wise. SMS based fund transfer To enable speeding up the process of fund transfers an innovative solution using mobile phones has been suggested. It works as follows; Site Assistant Engineer sends the day's muster roll of NREGS beneficiaries by SMS. Village Payment Agent receives the SMS Village Payment Agent makes payment to NREGS beneficiaries based on muster roll received, a second SMS about payments made is sent to Panchayati Raj Department's Banker .On receiving the SMS, the Panchayati Raj Department's Banker transfers funds to Village Payment Agent's bank account. SMS database will be integrated with NREGS web portal to generate weekly payment details. Using Rural ATMs The low-cost rural ATM (Gramin-teller) can be implemented if the bank account transfer mechanism is put in place. The ATM works with both used and new notes and has a fingerprint based authentication system. It works on very low power with a built-in battery back-up and does not require air conditioning. Synergetic Approach There are other projects like Common Service Centres, e-Panchayats, etc., percolating down to the panchayat level and State-Wide Area Networks are also
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available at the panchayat level in some States, where the use of ICT & GIS in NREGA implementation should be seen in synergy and complementary to all these initiatives that are contemplated or in progress. Then only can the full potential of ICT be harnessed for empowering the common citizen.
CHAPTER V STRENGTHENING RESEARCH AND EVALUATION SYSTEMS FOR MGNREGA
Policy Evaluation and Research Systems (PERS) Policy evaluation is a systematic process for assessing the design, implementation and outcomes, intended or unintended, of public policies. Evaluation uses social science research methods, including qualitative, quantitative and participatory techniques, to examine the effects of policies. Some policy scholars describe policy making as a sequential process marked by distinct steps, such as agenda-setting, policy formulation, adoption and implementation. For others, evaluation/assessment is the final step in this process. However, they all caution that the public policy process is ongoing, with evaluation often resulting in policy changes/correction which are then implemented and evaluated again. Policy evaluation enables all participants in the policy process, including legislators, executives, agency officials and citizens at large, to measure the degree to which a program/scheme has achieved its goals, assess the effects and identify any needed changes to a policy. The two main types of policy evaluation are formative and summative evaluation. Formative evaluation examines the operations of the program, usually for the purpose of improving the program and assessing its implementation. For example, most PIN studies of MoRD are primarily formative evaluation. Summative evaluation
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asks whether the program achieved its intended goals. Often, the best policy evaluations employ a creative hybrid or syncretic approach that uses both formative and summative techniques. Policy evaluation is rarely as simple or straightforward as some analysts may suggest. Factors that complicate evaluations include identifying goals, measuring performance and isolating the effects of policy from those of other endogenous or exogenous factors. Let us not forget that though policy makers often want immediate information on policy effects, but many programs/schemes have long-term effects (cascading or ripple) that will not be known in the short term. Objectives: As the implementation of MGNREGA has entered its fifth year in a row, the Working Group recommends setting up PERS as a continuous policy evaluation and research think tank for enhancing the capacity of MoRD in its effective and efficient implementation of MGNREGA by developing innovative participatory approaches and syncretic methodologies for impact analysis, anticipating policy research needs of key stakeholders and responding to specific policy analysis requests in the areas of innovation, convergence and capacity building on all current and emerging issues in MGNREGA. Additionally, PERS would also function as a forum and clearinghouse for the sharing of information as well as the dissemination of best practices through workshops, seminars, publication of journals, reports, bulletins, briefs and other literature . PERS would also help create an environment for imparting expertise to people interested in rigorous program evaluation and training to policy makers/implementers on how to conduct randomized and qualitative evaluations in social policies. With a rigorous adherence to objectives of MGNREGA especially articulating voices of poor in the realm of livelihood security , PERS would help create a robust, dynamic and self-evolving knowledge-space that is authoritative, objective, nonpartisan and transparent in generic terms of monitoring and evaluation as mentioned in the Section 11 of the Act. Further, PERS is intended to breakdown the silos in social science research and deepen the sphere of participatory and informed dialogue between policy makers and civil society. Why PERS? In the existing architecture of governance and capacity building support for MGNREGA, there is nothing in terms of independent policy research and evaluation support at the central or state level. PIN (Professional Institutional Network) in the MGNREGA cell of MoRD i operates on the principles of ex-postfacto analysis of the implementation of MGRNEGA and does not work on the principles of continuous and comprehensive evaluation/appraisal Though Professional Institutional Network (PIN) has been instituted as an “integrated structure” (or network) for concurrent appraisal, diagnosis, remedial action and capacity building for steady, sustainable interventions, to enhance the quality of the programme, the impact of PIN studies on course correction, innovation and policy change is rather limited at present. So far 61 studies have been commissioned by MoRD for the network of PIN but only 25 studies have been completed for policy appraisal in the last four years. Bulk of PIN studies (about 37 studies) have been commissioned in the last two years. Many of them have not yet submitted draft report. PIN also suffers usual selection bias, standardized format for impact analysis, and arbitrary criteria for choosing partners of PIN as it is not currently handled by development professionals and evaluation experts. There is also not clarity about the strategic vision of PIN. For instance, it is not clear what NIIT would do in its analysis of implementation of MGNREGA in the state of Delhi. Consider the case of
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Central Institute for Fisheries Education, Mumbai. Rather than doing study on ‘convergence” between MGNREGA and fisheries” or pissiciculture, the institute was awarded study on a generic impact analysis in Thane and Akola. Now, Central Institute of Fisheries Education has been give to undertake a generic impact analysis in the country. In contrast, leading experts on poverty and rural development in places like Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research or IIT in Mumbai were either not consulted or not considered good enough to undertake impact analysis. . Based on the field visit, interaction and meeting with key officials at NIAR (LABSNA) the Working Group on 28 April 2010 does not think that NIAR is equipped with enough in-house resources, skills, aptitudes and backed by quality researchers including dedicated professionals to justify the role of “ National Resource Center” for MGNREGA. In short, members of Working Group recommend that the NIAR needs to focus more seriously on research for teaching and training of career civil servants rather than undertaking Livelihood based development research across a broad band of spectrum of issues.. At the most, NIAR could be given resources for organizing peer learning workshops especially for DPC/ Collectors and senior civil servants. Though MGNREGA is anchored in the decentralized administration of PRIs, the role of career civil servants especially District Collectors better known as District Program Coordinators (DPC) continues to be critical to the success of MGNREGA. (For a detailed report on NIAR, kindly refer to Annexure) Though MoRD has now set up an Expert Group to recommend innovative methodologies for carrying our impact analysis, and commissioning impact analysis studies, there is urgent need for reforms of existing systems of evaluation and institutionalization of National Assessment or Evaluation System at the disposal of MoRD. The MGNREGA Technical Secretariat mainly provides administrativeprofessional support for the execution of MGNREGA as per the provisions of the Act. The Executive Committee of the Central Council is primarily an executive body engaged in giving directions to carry out the mandate of the Central Council. Barring PIN, there is no robust mechanism of continuous and comprehensive policy evaluation or appraisal of the implementation of MGNREGA at the state level. As they are mostly involved in the training programmes and providing logistic support to various programmes of Rural Development, NIRD and SIRDs have also not done more than lip-service to the needs of policy analysis of MGNREGA. Given the scale, reach and significance of MGNREGA in transforming the lives of poor and altering the meaning of social sector, an independent policy evaluation and research service is urgently required for MoRD.
Vision of PERS: Supported by existing mechanism of field-research based studies of PIN (Professional Institutional Network,) PERS would encourage interdisciplinary research methodologies in its framework of policy evaluation and analysis. The Book Series, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Policy Briefs and Working Papers (published periodically) would present substantial research findings on data, methodological, and conceptual issues related to the implementation of MGNREGA. PERS would continue to use PIN’s network for commissioning research from independent researchers, collaborators, and partner institutions (Universities, Social Science Institute, IITs/IIMs etc) across the country. This will link governmental and
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non-governmental efforts in areas of policy research for MGNREGA and also give credence to research studies undertaken by PIN. In other words, PERS would be ICT enabled ‘knowledge hub’ platform for academicians, development professionals, NGOs, policy makers and government officials for debate and dialogue on monitoring and evaluation in MGNREGA. The ultimate goal of PERS is to evolve into a ‘National Center for Excellence’ on Rural Livelihood through using state of art ‘evidence –based methodologies’ for developing policy recommendations/interventions from the perspectives of the vulnerable, disadvantaged and the marginalised.
Location of PERS: It should ideally be located in the proposed branch of NIRD in Jaipur (Rajasthan). Headed by eminent persons from academia, development sector, civil society, and bureaucrats having experience in social sector, PERS would be functionally independent and may be registered as an autonomous society within the purview of MoRD. Or alternatively, PERS could be conceptualized as a dedicated division of Research and Evaluation in the Technical Secretariat of MGNREGA in MoRD. Ideally, this should be headed by eminent scholars/researchers from academia, development sector and civil society. Structure of PERS: PERS will be composed of three units (or sections); namely “Independent Evaluation or Impact Assessment Unit’ that will focus on various implementing aspects including impact analysis and appraisal of MGNREGA. Second, ‘Research and Analysis Unit’ will be a new avatar of current PIN (Professional Institutional Network) for commissioning, guiding, and coordinating studies from a network of universities, social science institutes, and civil society organizations for fostering public-private partnership in the monitoring and evaluation of MGNREGA. Third unit will be “ Publication &Communication Unit”. This will be primarily responsible for publishing Policy Briefs, Occasional Papers, Special Reports, Working Papers, documentaries, short films etc. for effective and transparent dissemination of information and setting the stage for informed dialogue between people and the government about the implementation of MGNREGA. Functions of PERS ---- It will provide critical policy research support to crucial areas of improving delivery systems, innovation, convergence and social audit in the implementation of MGNREGA. It will act like a “think tank” or policy hub” for incubation of research and analysis support to key stakeholders of MGNREG. In short, it will provide privatepublic interface in the assessment/evaluation of MGNREGA. ---- It will assist the Central Council and MGNREGA Technical Secretariat of MoRD by conducting independent research, review, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of the implementing of MGNREGA for better policy feedback, impact analysis and innovation in course correction strategies. -- It will operationally facilitate institutionalizing consortium approach of MoRD as reflected/articulated in PIN (Professional Institutional Network). In other words, PERS will formulate appropriate research methodologies and also commission studies from the network of PIN. Additionally, PERS will also provide knowledge support to NIRD and SIRDs in areas of training and capacity building. In short, PERS
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is proposed as “National Resource Support System” for implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA. ------ For greater public participation or what we call institutionalization of “epistemic community “ in the development discourses, PERS will also encourage and assist MoRD to support setting up ‘Centres for excellence in Rural Development/Livelihood’ and endowment of professorial chair/fellowship in the universities and research institutions. A beginning could be made from Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, known for best practices in the implementation of MGNREGA, in 2010-11. ----PERS would also operate as ‘MGNREGA Observatory’ and organize ‘knowledge events’ in collaboration with PIN partners through public lectures, seminars, workshops, conferences that inform practices of evaluation research and analysis. PERS could also organize exhibitions, for example of cartoons, photography and documentary on MGNREGA.
CHAPTER VI
CAPACITY BUILDING REFORMS FOR TRAINING A. The Present Status of Training 1. The list of stake holders currently being imparted training is not inclusive. 2. There exists variation in the contents, methodology, duration, expected outcome and available physical infrastructure in training programmes of MGNREGA across states in India. (Example: Kerala, AP, NE States, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra). 3. Although, some of these variations can be explained in terms of different nature of institutions and stakeholders involved, level of social moblization and presence of regional specificities yet a good amount of variation is due to unnecessarily differently designed course contents and delivery mechanisms. 4. In all the states, most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including DPCs, ADPCs, POs, Line Officers, Zilla Parishad Heads, Panchayat Samiti Chairmen, Gram Panchayat Heads, Civil Society Members do not realize that NREGA is meant to be an effective process of rural development but not an end in itself in the form of
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wage employment. They fail to understand that MGNREGA is an effective intervention in contemporary rural development practice. This failure in understanding, leads to consider MGNREGA as simply a wage employment programme. 5. There is no bench marking of course contents and institutional capability, identification and preparation of a list of trainers and experts at national, regional and sub-regional levels. 6. Training Needs Assessment for different stakeholders has not been undertaken.
B. Following are some of the general recommendations;
•
•
A dedicated division in MoRD for looking after the training needs of various development programmes of MoRD. Further, MoRD could identify eminent social workers, academics and policy makers as “National Fellow” and place them either in NIRD/SIRDs or Universities/ Social Science Institutes for strengthening the training and skill development of communities from the civil society and government. MGNREGA division of MoRD urgently needs to set up an ‘Expert Group’ to identify the training gaps and shortcomings for strengthening the implementation of Act. The ToR of the Expert group needs to cover NIRD and SIRDs as well as SIRDs are in most places are imparting mechanically and almost dysfunctionally without any input from latest research and analysis. The Expert group also needs to identify eminent institutes of national repute for placing key officials and staff for training and skill development.
•
For urgent need of ‘communitization of capacity building’, MoRD needs to declare people based rural development centres in Ralegaon Siddhi, MKKS in Vijaypura, SPS(MP), Vilasrao Salunkhe (Pani-baba)’s experiments in Purandhar block in Pune, Subhas Palekar’s Zero budget agriculture in Amaravati and various similar innovative experiments across the country as “National Centres for excellence for Community Learning’ for imparting training in rural development.
•
MoRD also needs to benefit from an innovative public and civil society partnership model in which voluntary organizations, foundations and social science research institutes, IITs, IIMs etc. provide continuous and comprehensive learning. CAPART needs to be made more proactive in “ communitization “ of training pedagogy, tools and course contents; CAPART could easily undertake the exercise of identifying leading, credible and innovative civil society organizations or voluntary organizations involved in the development of rural India. This can be done by the “National Standing Committee of EC members of CAPART.
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•
The whole net work of Nehru Yuvak Kendras which can be used for awareness generation, planning and training in MGNREGA remain stuck in some cosmetic works of youth development. This trend needs to be reversed by convergence between Nehru Yuvak Kendras and MoRD.
•
Based on visits and interactions with key officials and researchers at NIRD, SIRD (Rajasthan/ Bihar/ Guwahati) and KILA (Kerala), the Working Group recommends NIRD (Hyderabad) to undertake urgent reforms for restructuring the existing institutional and management processes . NIRD indeed could provide excellent logistic and coordination support and create congenial support systems for debate and discussion but it seriously lacks quality research environment. This will not happen unless NIRD is gradually reengineered for creative peer learning and given more academic freedom for introducing innovative course contents and teaching tools through new perspectives on participatory and inclusive rural development. For management reforms, NIRD could learn a lot from KILA model in Kerala. Given the vast resources and faculty available at its disposal, NIRD could easily transition into a full-fledged institution for imparting training to officials involved in the implementation of various flagships programs of rural development (MGNREGA, NRLM etc.) Since MoRD has already formed an Expert Group to consider reforms for NIRD (Hyderabad), the Working Group would prefer to wait for the report of the Expert Group.
•
The proposed chapter of NIRD at Jaipur needs to be declared a dedicated “National Institute of Rural Development” for fulfilling the goals of MGNREGA and NRLM (National Rural Livelihood Mission) by undertaking the tasks of research, impact analysis, training and advocacy services. Jaipur chapter of NIRD should ideally be designed as“ Policy Hub for Innovations(PHI)” in rural development in India.
•
As the exclusive focus on courses and programmes in various aspects of Rural Development and Management has been missing in the current architecture of university education in India, the Working Group recommends MoRD to urgently set up an “Expert group” to examine of the feasibility of incubating new courses and studies in the university system.
•
Overhauling of training ethos and contents: Most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including workers, GP functionaries, officers and officials at the block level consider NREGA as a wage employment programme. However, MGNREGA is now focused to be an effective intervention in contemporary development practice. To recast MGNREGA in the developmental canvas, we suggest that the important stakeholders of the programme be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and NREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation,
64
social capital creation through mobilization, capability expansion of individuals and communities and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how NREGA is an intervention in contemporary development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through MGNREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up MGNREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development , social mobilization and participation. •
Four national level training Institutes in four regions: The Working Group feels the necessity of identifying four national level institutes in four regions of the country for organizing training and workshops on MGNREGS for DPCs, ADPCs, Zilla Parishad Presidents/chairmen, senior civil society members, Ombudsmen, senior journalists and other elected representatives like MPs and MLAs. Since NIRDs have their branches in Hyderabad, Guwahati, Patna and Jaipur (Upcoming), we feel that the Hyderabad branch can accommodate participants from Southern and Eastern states, Guwahati branch can accommodate participants from all the North eastern states, Jaipur branch can cater to participants from western regions and Patna branch can accommodate participants from northern and central states. However, NIRDs need to overhaul their infrastructure, course contents, and faculty competence. As Patna NIRD is hardly functional so efforts need to be taken up for revamping the existing architecture of NIRD.
•
Strengthening of SIRDs; SIRDs can conduct training programmes, workshops, brainstorming sessions on MGNREGS for other stake holders . However, they need to be strengthened in terms of physical infrastructure, faculty number and core competence. Their existing ETCs also need to be strengthened and more ETCs need to be established. Use of ICT like videoconferencing should be encouraged.
•
Preparation of Register of national level experts in MGNREGS training: A list of national level eminent subject experts on MGNREGS can be prepared by NIRDs/NREGS Cell of MORD and the same can be displayed in the website of these institutes/MORD along with the detailed contact addresses of them. Similar exercise can be done at the state and regional level by the SIRDs/NREGS cell of State Governments.
C: Following are some of the specific recommendations: 1. Need to expand the list of stakeholders for training:
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(a) Government Functionaries: DPCs, Additional DPCs, Programme Officers, Additional Programme officers, Police Officers, Officers of line departments like agriculture, horticulture, tourism, irrigation, soil conservation, forests , Assistant Engineers, junior engineers, block Panchayat secretary, secretaries of Gram Panchayat. (b) Elected Representatives and Members of PRIs : MPs, MLAs, Zilla Parishad chairman, Panchayat Samiti chairperson, Gram Panchayat heads like sarpanch, members of Panchayat Samiti/block Panchayat, Members of Gram Panchayat, Members of Gram Sabha. (c) Technical Staff working and would be working under NREGS : TA, Gramrojgar Sahayak, Accredited Engineers, Data Entry Operators and Accounts Assistants/Accountants, Mate etc. (d) Representatives of Civil Society: NGOs, Vigilance and Monitoring committee members, Self Help Groups, Neighbourhood Groups, social audit professionals. (e) Ombudsmen 2 Model Training Module for District Programme Coordinators (This is a model training module for DPCs. Same modules can be prepared for other stake holders in MGNREGA)
Objective
To sensitize the participants the relevance and potential of MGNREGA in development perspective in general and rural development perspective in particular.
To understand the requirements, components, processes of planning, implementation and monitoring of MGNREGS.
Expected Outcome
The training programme would enable the participants to
Contextualize MGNREGA in the current development theory and practice
66
Understand the role of DPC in management of the programme both in its processes and outcomes.
Ensure convergence of development schemes, minds and skills
Handle MIS for effective data management and monitoring of MGNREGS
Understand the role, use and importance of ICT in asset management in NREGA
Appreciate the importance of NREGS in ensuring good governance
Understand the details of management of finance, people, programme processes and outcomes.
Content Details
1. MGNREGS as an effective intervention in contemporary development practice (a) Evolution of the concept of development as theory and practice from economic growth to sustainable development. Concepts and practices in capability expansion, sustainable development, participation, mobilisation and empowerment. (b) Evolution of economic system, agents of development and mechanism of resource allocation in the context of development theory and practice. (c) Linking these concepts and practices with rural development theory and practice. (d) Genesis and evolution of Rural Development models and practices in developing countries including India (e) MGNREGS as a contemporary rural development practice in Livelihood security. (f) Evolution and appraisal of wage employment programmes in India (g) MGNREGS from programme to Act
2. MGNREGS and its relevance for the state of -------
3. MGNREGS Process
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(a) Understanding the provisions of MGNREG Act, with respect to demand for work, job card availability, workers entitlements, institutions involvement in its planning, implementation and evaluation. (b) Preparation of scientific district perspective plan for NREGS, labour budgeting, demand forecasting in the light of the seasonality of jobs, cultural and social practices of the people etc. 4. Convergence of works and schemes in MGNREGS Identifying the works, schemes, departments , officers and officials for convergence and exploring the possibility for convergence in meetings of the district planning committees. 5. Role of DPC in management of the programme both in its processes and outcomes. (a) Duties and responsibilities of DPC under the act. (b) DPC and sound management practices with respect to planning, implementing and monitoring of NREGS processes and outcomes.
6. MIS and MGNREGS monitoring (a) Why data management in MGNREGS? (b) MIS and MGNREGS-An Overview (c) Areas of process monitoring and MIS (d) District level appraisal and monitoring mechanism.
7. Use of ICT in Asset Management in MGNREGS. (a) Importance of ICT in asset management (b) Potential of ICT use in asset management
8. Good Governance and MGNREGS (a) MGNREGS and Transparency (b) MGNREGS and Accountability (c ) MGNREGS and public vigilance
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(d) MGNREGS and Social Audit (e) MGNREGS and Ombudsman
9. Management of Finance and people (a) Funds Flow in MGNREGS (b) Sectoral utilization (c ) On line reporting (d) Deployment of people in MGNREGS (d) Reporting in MGNREGS-monthly and Annual
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CHAPTER8 CHAPTER8VII GOVERNANCE REFORMS FOR CAPACITY BUILDING BUILDING
Management Support Systems for MGNREGA
7.1 Anchoring at the National Level MGNREGA has assigned several responsibilities of steering and guiding the programme to the central government. The MGNREGA also assigns the following powers to the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) "(a) establish a central evaluation and monitoring system; (b) advise the Central Government on all matters concerning the implementation of this Act; (c) review the monitoring and redressal mechanism from time to time and recommend improvements required; (d) promote the widest possible dissemination of information about the Schemes made under this Act; (e) monitoring the implementation of this Act; (f) preparation of annual reports to be laid before Parliament by the Central Government on the implementation of this Act; (g) any other duty or function as may be assigned to it by the Central Government. (2) The Central Employment Guarantee Council shall have the power to undertake evaluation of the various Schemes made under this Act and for that purpose collect or cause to be collected statistics pertaining to the rural economy and the implementation of the Schemes." [Section 11 of MGNREGA] The Act also provides for establishment of similar State Employment Guarantee Councils in each state to oversee and monitor the MGNREGA implementation.
The Working Group's observations on human resources, capacity building and evaluation in different portions of this report indicate that there is need for a greater
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degree of cohesive effort across the board to make MGNREGA realize its true potential. While the provisions of the Operational Guidelines are more than adequate with regard to different aspects of MGNREGA implementation, they cannot realize their true potential until a proper organizational structure and business plan is in place and a clear sense of purpose13 and cohesion across the board is achieved in pushing this business plan. Such an organizational structure needs to be accountable, flexible, highly professional and open.
As the history of several rural development interventions in India have shown, the best pieces of legislation and the most well thought out scheme for betterment of the lives of the rural poor have tended to falter because of a failure to set systems in place which are critical. And this failure itself can be traced to some or the other stakeholder in the chain moving without the necessary commitment14. MGNREGA represents a set of constitutional obligations, which leave little room for slack in the delivery mechanism, since such a slack would mean legal entitlements being denied to the poorest. Thus a strong and proactive oversight mechanism is critical. We use the term proactive to suggest that rather than wait for grievances or violations to arise, the mechanism responds to ensure that the necessary pieces are in place to minimize the possibility of violations.
While Section 11 of the Act, cited above point to the powerful oversight functions of the Central Council, which is the apex body for MGNREGA, it has also been pointed out that: " . . . it is interesting to compare the facilities and structures that are available for NREGA at the centre with those of say, the Election Commission, the Census of India, or Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – other national programmes with a much smaller 13
“Purpose” here is used in the sense of Charles Heckscher's usage [see Charles Heckscher, “The Limits of Participatory Management”, Across the board, Nov-Dec 1995 and is distinct from “goals”, which often degenerate into quantitative targets or “vision” or “mission”, which are prone to becoming sweeping and large: “A purpose is something in the middle: a complex statement of the organization's challenges and objectives over a three to five year time frame. It usually can't hang on a wall, because it is far too complicated. The limited time frame keeps the purpose concrete, away from airy abstractions. But it is a long enough period to provide a challenge worth caring about”
14
For instance, with regard to ombudsmen, it has been observed by the Working Group that different state governments have shown varying commitments to the idea, with some perceiving this to be an additional “burden” on an overloaded system
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budget and mandate. The NREGA cell at the Ministry of Rural Development is a dwarf in comparison . . . "15 and that: “NREGA is a complex legislation with many different actors. The Central Government has wide powers to define the implementation framework of NREGA through Guidelines, Rules and other means (including amendments in the Schedules of the Act). The state governments are responsible for implementing state-specific “employment guarantee schemes” within that framework. And the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), especially the Gram Panchayats, are the main “implementing agencies” of NREGA works on the ground, though the Act also allows other implementing agencies such as Line Departments. In this operational maze, clear principles and guidelines are essential. This requires, in particular, close coordination between the Central and state governments.”16 In a detailed two-volume report submitted to the Prime Minister of India, based on intensive field surveys, the NCEUS recommends for MGNREGA that : “. . . a full fledged Employment Guarantee Mission (on the lines of health and education missions) should be created in order to provide adequate support structures for the Central and state governments. ”17
Indeed, for a national level programme such as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), whose budgetary outlay is about a quarter of that of the MGNREGA, a well structured implementational scheme has been envisioned with a national level mission governed by a proposed apex NRLM Council at the national level. Under the circumstances, it is unclear why a similar strengthening of the MGNREGA has progressed much more slowly, if at all.
15
Jean Dreze, Kartika Bhatia and Reetika Khera, Making NREGA Work, Unpublished Report for the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), 2009
16
Jean Dreze, Kartika Bhatia and Reetika Khera (op.cit.)
17
The Challenge of Employment in India : An Informal Economy Perspective: Volume I - Main Report (pg. 227) , NCEUS, 2009, New Delhi
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The Working Group believes that the largest employment programme in human history requires a dedicated anchoring structure at the national level to fulfill the mandate of the Act and to strengthen the functioning of the apex council, the CEGC.
The Working Group had intensive discussions on the form of such an anchoring structure, whether Mission, Authority, Directorate, or other. It was felt that the exact form of such a structure could emerge through wider debate but it would be worthwhile to spell out the mandate that such a structure should ideally fulfill. Two organizational forms may be considered for this structure: •
one favouring complete autonomy with the Chairperson of the Central Council and the key functionaries of the Technical Secretariat in-sourced from outside the normal channels
•
while full autonomy may be preferred, its constitutional and legal implications may take time to work out. Thus a hybrid structure may be adopted with the CEGC and Chairperson remaining as they are, and some key positions reserved for in-house personnel while others being insourced through external channels.
Since the CEGC is the apex Council responsible for MGNREGA and since the idea behind the anchoring structure is to strengthen the Act, the Working Group has preferred to use the term Technical Secretariat The idea of this anchoring structure can be seen to be an elaboration and enlargement of the scope of the Technical Secretariat proposed under Section 11 of the Central Council rules. It is felt by this Working Group that the Technical Secretariat would benefit by a clear definition of its responsibilities as well as provision for induction of the best professional talent in the country to provide leadership to its different functions.
Such a CMT will take the responsibility of overseeing the following most important functions to make NREGA effective: Human resources and Capacity Building
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Monitoring Information Technology Social Audit and Evaluation Grievance Redressal The Technical Secretariat should be a dedicated structure, headed by a Chief Executive Officer(CEO). Setting up of such a structure will also help to separate the functions of executing the programme from those of evaluation and grievance redressal, since as a matter of principle, the agency executing the programme should not be the one also assessing its own work. The Technical Secretariat is required also so that appropriate focus can be given in key areas such as deployment of IT and human resource development, without which NREGA will not realise its potential. All key positions of accountability should be filled in after a due high-level search and screen process, with the provision for enabling lateral entry of highly qualified and eminent professionals where needed. Serving government officers may also be identified and placed through such a screen process. The process should shortlist potential candidates from within the government or outside.
The Secretariat should have the following departments: Monitoring: Headed by a National Level Manager responsible for concurrent monitoring of work under NREGA and establishing and refining systems of monitoring the work under MGNREGA Evaluations and Social Audit: Mounting evaluations through a carefully selected panel of experts and consultants from across the country, ensuring that social audits are undertaken and monitoring the action taken on the findings of such social audits; Grievance Redressal: Headed by National Manager , the department will be a window for complaints made by wage-seekers, lay citizens, representatives of wageseekers, organizations working with wage-seekers or any other agency or institution wishing to bring to the notice of the CEGC any violation of the Act or its operational
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guidelines in any part of the country. The Ombudsmen throughout the country will work as the eyes, arms and legs CEGC. Information Technology Department: Also headed by a National Manager, who will report to the Mission Director this department's role will be to:
assess ICT needs, in terms of both hardware and software, for providing a proper ICT backbone for MGNREGA implementation and come up with a blueprint for effective ICT deployment for MGNREGA which caters to information needs vis a vis transparency, monitoring and grievance redressals
deploy the best possible expertise available in the country to advise it on ICT deployments
ensure that the ICT blueprint is deployed once it has been ratified by the CEGC
ensure ICT deployment across the country, conforming to the best standards anywhere in the world
ensure that states are complying with the ICT requirements of data returns and updation
ensure that latest developments in ICT which are potentially beneficial for use in MGNREGA implementation and monitoring are screened, piloted, developed further and disseminated
pro-actively set up a coordination mechanism with other major ICT-centred initiatives of the government such as the UIDAI
MGNREGA implementation personnel are trained in use of ICT
Human Resources Department: Also headed by a National Manager, who will report to the Mission Director, this department's primary responsibility will be • to work out standards for human resources recruited for NREGA implementation, • to work out recruitment processes, human resource policies, performance evaluation criteria and so on • to assess gaps, (including region-specific gaps) in human resource deployment and availability and to work out short-term responses and
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medium-term and long-term mechanisms for ensuring a steady source of human resources for MGNREGA • to widely promote a gender-sensitive, pro-poor and pro-active work culture down the line • to work out a system of certification for human resources, which all implementation structures have to comply with, • to identify and set standards for identifying training institutions across the country who can discharge the responsibilities of capacity building for NREGA • to work out syllabi for training courses that NREGA personnel should go through, • to arrange for trainings for these personnel • to network with professional and technical institutions, Civil Society Organizations, subject matter specialists and experts to create the necessary human resource infrastructure for effective capacity building • to assess training material available, to ensure its wide dissemination across the country and to promote the production and dissemination of high quality resource material (print and electronic) for MGNREGA Each of these departments may induct and in-source professionals from across the country for their functions.
Each of these departments may also be steered by Standing or Empowered Committees set up by the CEGC, headed by a CEGC member and optionally inducting experts of impeccable integrity and standing.
7.2 Other Specific Recommendations at the National Level While the above structure may emerge after due deliberation, the Working Group also sees the need for some specific and immediate recommendations with a view to strengthening the oversight mechanism inherent in the constitution of the CEGC as the apex council, which have emerged from discussions with Central Council members.
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1. There is need to set in place a mechanism whereby the CEGC is informed about the action taken on the recommendations made by it. The CEGC may also be empowered to ask for such action taken information, not only from the Central Government but also from State Governments if and as the need arises. 2. Given a minimum number of CEGC members which may be deemed to constitute a quorum, desiring to convene a meeting of the CEGC and submitting this request in writing, the same should be convened. 3. With regard to Ombudsmen, it is important that the Ombudsmen also report to the CEGC or a Steering Committee thereof on the complaints received by her, the action taken by her and the action taken on her recommendations by the state government. This is important since, in the event of the SEGC or the state nodal department failing to Act, or failing to Act within a reasonable time-frame or in the best possible manner, the CEGC's power may be used to insist that action is taken. Without such backup it may not be practicable for the ombudsmen to discharge her duties in the best possible manner. 4. A system of national level ombudsmen may also be considered with sufficient oversight powers to create the necessary backup. These National Level Ombudsmen should be people of impeccable integrity with a record of the highest standards of public service and should be appointed transparently through a very high level search process. They should also be empowered to conduct suo-moto inquiries and reviews if they perceive the need to arise.
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7.3 Mission Mode at the State Level Currently, most state governments barring Rajasthan and AP as observed in our field visits, rely on adhoc administrative systems for implementation and monitoring of MGNREGA. State Employment Gurantee Council functions minimally and are mostly limited to giving approvals to administrative actions carried out by the Department of Rural Development or Department of Panchyati Raj as the case may be. Therefore, given the ‘polycentric nature” of the design and implementation of MGNREGA, governance reforms in the existing administrative arrangements for implementing at the state level are urgently needed. Bihar is actively pursuing this approach (refer to annexure on Bihar). The Society would be operated by a Governing Committee/Council (GC) which would be headed by Principal Secretary RD and
Commissioner, RD as member -secretary.
Commissioner Rural Development assumes the responsibility of ‘State Programme Coordinator’ for MGNREGA and would be assisted by a Directorate comprising subject specialists/experts and support staff. The other members of the GC could be secretaries from Planning, water resources, finance, labour, road, environment & forest. Two to three prominent members from the civil society especially involved in the implementation of Employment Gurantee programmes/Social Audit/ Rural Entrepreneurship could also be nominated to the GC for a policy feedback and interface with civil society. The proposed Society would function more of Executive arm of the ‘State Employment Gurantee Council’ and would oversee all administrative and technical issues arising out of the implementation of MGNREGA in the state. The Society needs to adopt Mission approach with observable outcomes for achieving the goals of MGNREGA. As the success of MGNREGA depends on the “institutionalized co-operation” from state governments, it is recommended to set up a dedicated structure which may take the form of an "Independent Society" under the Department of Rural Development or Panchyati Raj dedicated to the implementation and monitoring of MGRNEGA in the state.
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CHAPTER VIII CAPACITY BUILDING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NORTH EAST The Northeast The North Eastern Region of India includes the eight sister states of Arunachal, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and a recent entrant, Sikkim. It has a landmass of 2.62 lakh sq. km that covers 7.9 per cent of the total area of the country. The total population of 39 lakh (2001 census) accounts for 3.8 per cent of the country’s total population. About 70 per cent of the region is hilly, and the topography varies within each state. Mountains and hills cover most of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim and about half of Tripura, one-fifth of Assam and nine-tenth of Manipur.
The economy of the region reflects its
backwardness with 56 per cent of workers engaged in agriculture as per census 2001. The region is industrially very backward with the contribution of this sector being less than 3 per cent in all the states, except for Assam and Manipur where it is 12 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. The poverty level in the region is among the highest in the country with the percentage of population below poverty line in the states ranging from 36 to 29 per cent4, compared to the all India average of 26 per cent. The region is also characterized by low per- capita income, low capital formation, inadequate infrastructure facilities, geographical isolation and communication bottlenecks, and higher unemployment rate . The level of agriculture productivity is very low with a large section of the farmers, especially in the upland areas engaged in shifting cultivation. In both the periods i.e. 1980s and 1990s, the average growth in NSDP for the north eastern region as a whole, has been lower than the all India average. In 1990s the situation has even worsened. Whereas for the country as a whole, the average growth rate has marginally increased from 5.5 in 1980s to 5.8 in 1990s, for the north eastern region, it has decreased from 4.4 to 3.6 during the same
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period. The situation has grossly deteriorated in Assam. Except for Arunachal and Tripura, in all other states, growth rates in NSDP have not exhibited any difference during the last 20 years. Inequality in the north eastern region as measured by the Gini
coefficient,
has
increased
for
the
period
from
1993-94
to
1999-
2000(Panda:2010). What worries one is the fact that this inequality has increased during this period in all the north-eastern states except Meghalaya. The fact that the primary sector contributes close to one third of the GSDP and in terms of employment to more than half of the workers, strengthens the belief that there is disguised unemployment and underemployment in the rural sector of the economy.
Thus, considering this high degree of underdevelopment manifested in poverty, inequality,
disguised
unemployment
and
underemployment,
environmental
exploitation, the necessity to initiate a programme like NREGS was all the more necessary in this region.
It has been more than four years that phase-I of NREGA have come in to effect in the region. Since this programme is comprehensive both in terms of its coverage and explicit and implicit objectives, and initial appraisal of its process of implementation and the extent, nature , productivity and sustainability of its outcome(Panda:2009), inter alia, brings up the issue of capacity deficiency at different levels as one of the limiting factors for the overall success of the programme; a comprehensive understanding of the capacity issues in MGNREGA in the North East is all the more important and pertinent.
Capacity Deficiency in MGNREGA in North East Deficiency in capacity is found in all the three levels i.e. (i) Individual stakeholders(workers, govt. officers and officials, PRI functionaries, functionaries of officials created under act in the absence of PRI system, neighbourhood functionaries etc.), (ii) community and (iii) institutions involved in implementation and monitoring of this programme. Often the deficiency in one of these stakeholders affects the other and vice-versa. For example, capacity deficiency in institutions
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leads to capacity deficiency in individual stakeholders and community and viceversa. Hence, in the North-East, there exists a low level circle of capacity deficiency in rural development programmes in general and MGNREGA in particular. These low capacity bases in these three levels act and react upon each other keeping the overall level of capacity in MGNREGA delivery in the region in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. To be specific these deficiencies manifest in the front of manpower availability, training institutions, capability of the institutions to undertake and impart training, training modules, institutional capacity to mobilize workers, PRIs and their functionaries, civil society, governance and leadership.
Manifestation of Capacity Deficiency: Some Facts Individual awareness about the programme details is not comprehensive. A Quick appraisal of NREGA in the state of Meghalaya undertaken by Panda in 2009 shows that 45% of the workers (stakeholder-I), 35% of the AEC and VEC Members (stakeholder-II), 40% of the Third party (stake holder-III) are not aware of the basic provisions of MGNREGA. This study also further highlights that (i) half of the workers surveyed in a study area did not specify their required demand of employment, (ii) Forty percent (40%) of the workers agreed to the fact that the job card was not issued to them within 15 days of their application, (iii) On an average 76.25 % of the workers opined that they did not get work with in 5 km range of their village. According to stakeholder II, (i) in 40% of the cases Gram Panchayat does not issue receipt of the application, (ii) 50% of the Vigilance and Monitoring Committee members are not be trained regarding NREGA and (iii) about 89% of the mates and 13% of Gram Rozgar Sewaks recruited have not undergone any formal training on NREGA (iv) in 15 percent of cases, works in progress are not being technically supervised regularly, (v)19 % of the work completed are not recorded in the Asset Register, (vi) Gram Rozgar Sewak is not available for each Village/Dorbar, (vii) payment to workers is not made trough banks and post offices, (viii) There is the absence of PRI institutions in some of the NE states like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
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Capacity Deficiency in Training: The visit of the working group to the North East and its interaction with various stakeholders(minutes of it are given in Appendix-) brought out the deficiency in training institutes, spread of these institutes, training modules in MGNREGA very clearly. NIRD-NERC which is located in Guwahati runs with only four regular faculties including its Director. It does not have enough in-campus residential facility to accommodate participants. In the absence of accomplished faculties in adequate numbers with appropriate physical infrastructure, senior functionaries in MGNREGA like state secretaries, DPCs, ADPCs are not interested to have their training undertaken there. Further, the course modules for senior functionaries in NREGA deal more with MGNREGA Process monitoring and management devoid of the required understanding of the philosophy and theory of rural development and the role of MGNREGA therein. SIRDs too suffer from same deficiency in faculty, supporting staff; concept ,management and understanding of the theory and practice of MGNREGA.
To overcome these deficiencies, we suggest strengthening, streamlining and mainstreaming the faculty strength, infrastructure and training modules respectively of NIRD-NERC, Guwahati and all the SIRDs in the region. Large states like Arunachal Pradesh should open more extension centres of SIRDs in three different regions of the state. We also suggest better networking of these SIRDs with their extension centres and with NIRD Guwahati through video conferencing etc. Power cut is a problem in interior regions of North East. These remotely located power deficient SIRDs and their extension centres must be equipped with alternative sources of power like solar power and DG Sets. The expenditure undertaken on this head can be met from the administrative cost of the rural developmental programmes including MGNREGA. Most of the stakeholders of MGNREGA including workers, GP functionaries, officers and officials at the block level do not realize that MGNREGA is meant to be an effective process of development but not an end in itself in the form of wage
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employment. To make it happen, we suggest that these important stakeholders of the programme particularly the programme officers (BDOs) be imparted a short course on “The Theory and Practice of Development and NREGA”. The course should have some (i) elements of development theory that includes current thinking on development( like sustainable development, participation and role of institutions (ii) an understanding of development practice that relate and flow from these theories including role of democratic decentralization, (iii) an explanation of how MGNREGA is an intervention in development practice and finally (iv) an understanding of the dynamics of rural development through MGNREGA that provide insight to read and rewrite the theory and practice of rural development in the context of the North East. The essential investigation of the course should be to link up MGNREGA with capability enhancement, sustainable development and participation in the region.
Capacity Deficiency in Mobilisation of Workers In the NE Region, there is absence of institutions like strong civil society or grass root NGOs to effectively mobilize and empower workers. However, the SHG movement is slowly but steadily gaining ground. Hence we suggest better coordination between SGSY and NREGA and explore the SHG route of mobilising workers in NREGA.
Capacity Building and Social Audit Concept of social audit is new to some parts of the people of the North East and often runs in to problems because of age old cultural practices and community ethos in the north eastern region. However, as social audit is mandatory in MGNREGA, we suggest social audit workshops to be preceded social audit exercise and be undertaken at village, block and district levels to reassure the people that it is not a fault finding system rather a system of transparency, certification and inclusion. Once the acceptability of social audit been established, initially this exercise can be undertaken by reputed organisations like MKSS and afterwards can be passed on to regional organisations of credibility, import and expertise.
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Integration of substitute Institutions of PRI with indigenous/traditional institutions and their capability Expansion. The North Eastern region does not have PRIs in place in many NER sates like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. They have their indigenous/traditional institutions like the Durbar and Gaon Budha System. Bringing in PRI-proxies by legislation and integrating them with the traditional institutions and power structure in the context of NREGA is a bigger challenge. The substitute of PRI framework that has been introduced in states like of Meghalaya through MREGS is in its infancy. The members of the AEC(Area Employment Council)
and VECs(Village
Employment Council) need to be continuously provided trainings on the necessity, practices, procedures, objectives and achievements of PRI institutions and their relevance for a movement and programme like NREGS. A short course “Rural Development and MGNREGA” needs to be tailor-made for this category of stakeholders that should incorporate elements and practices on democratic decentralization, rural development and NREGA.
Capacity Building for Financial Inclusion Financial inclusion is limited because of thin spread of banks/post offices. The topography and cultural practices of people also contribute to it. To overcome the topographical compulsions, we suggest the introduction of bike-cum-barefoot satellite banking system by the postal department/banks. The postal department is undertaking innovative expansion in its activities. We find that in states like Meghalaya home delivery of letters/documents are not undertaken in remote rural areas. This is the right time that a model like bike-cum- barefoot satellite banking (with biometric cards) with postal article delivery can be combined by the postal department and the job can be undertaken by the modern postman. This delivery, collection of postal articles along with banking can be undertaken in remote areas twice in a week. Further, the postal department being a government organisation has the trust of the people, unlike other small private players. Capacity Building in Awareness and Dissemination:
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One of the reasons for poor awareness about MGNREGA in North East particularly with workers is because of non-availability or limited availability of literature on MGNREGA in local languages because of limited and or poor translation in to local languages. We suggest here that SIRDs of respective states, can be given a project to identify the major languages of their states, collaborate with the local linguistic departments of respective universities and can get efficient translation done for dissemination of MGNREGA material. Absence of technical people to be employed as technical assistants: To overcome the problem of shortage of technical Assistant, in addition to having a HR policy in place in MGNREGA and increasing remuneration associated with this post, the authorities can recruit local youths with class XII pass certificates and train them for two/three months by the government engineers of the district/block/divisions and then employ them for measurement and technical supervision of NREGA works. Capacity Building and Ombudsman Many of the NER States except Assam and Tripura, do not find enough candidates for the position of Ombudsman. Where ever, they are available, the list is heavy with retired bureaucrats only. To overcome this problem, to make the selection inclusive and to strengthen this institution, the required 20 years experience may be reduced to 15 years so that we get candidates from the civil society, as in many states civil society is of recent origin including separation of judiciary from executive. Capacity building and Convergence Existence of a pervasive culture of contractor raj in the North East is basically exploitative on man and environment. This institution prevents convergence in NREGA as it fears its extinction if MGNREGA processes are bench marked for other departments and schemes. To realize the full potential of MGNREGA as a process of rural development, convergence of schemes, skills, and minds is a necessity. Ideally, we suggest the critical level at which the convergence should happen is the block. The head of the PRI at the block and the BDO are the institutions who command the respect of the
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other line officers. Although we feel that the BDOs are overburdened with other works, but considering MGNREGA to be central to rural development and the centrality of the institution of BDO in the block hierarchy, it is the best suited institution to promote convergence through commanding the services of other line officers. Any other separate institution created for MGNREGA implementation at the block level may not command the respect as that of the BDO. Once the PRI institutions are strengthened, and become the central agency of rural development, the role of the BDO can be taken over by the PRI head at the block level. Till it happens, we suggest the strengthening of the institution of BDO in line with the model of the deputy commissioner at the district level with the creation of an institution of APO (Additional Programme Officer) who would be assisting the BDO in day to day activities in MGNREGA.
Capacity Building and Planning and Execution of MGNREGA work: The State Employment Guarantee Councils should be strengthened in line with the Central Employment Guarantee Council at the centre. To do so, the states in the region should induct men of integrity, capability, expertise in to the council who are apolitical in nature. Once this is done, the council should have its secretariat that can undertake the planning and monitoring work of MGNREGA by commissioning to undertake
effective demand forecasting mechanism that takes in to account
seasonality in jobs as seasonality in employment is an important issue in MGNREGA in this part of the country. MGNREGA Help Line No state in the region has a dedicated MGNREGA 24*7 help line. This should be immediately taken up and activated. In Passing The greatest asset of the NER region is its community centric living system in the rural areas particularly in the upland Hill Areas. This arrangement reduces information asymmetry and moral hazard in the implementation of developmental schemes making the cost, conflict and time-line of implementation of the programme significantly reduced. On the other hand the biggest challenge to implementation of MGNREGA is the typical cost, time and struggle associated with the geography and
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topography related factors. This brings us to the necessity of the use of innovative and appropriate modern technology in the form ICT, GPS etc. in reaching out to the tribal people. Let us maximize the impact of the capacity multiplier in MGNREGA in this region by adopting the required modern technology with a mindset that is not exploitative on men and material and free of rent seeking.
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Chapter IX
Conclusion: A New Era of Governance for MGNREGA! Therefore, while we emphasise on governance, innovations, accountability and equity as key principles for new regime of ‘capacity building’, we also like to underline that MGNREGA needs to increasingly rely more on public-private partnership, better interorganizational processes, information technology, performance oriented incentive structures for human resources, more transparency in the social audit procedures, building quality human capital and supply bottom-up accountability to the public works. Emphasizing collaboration and empowerment rather than hierarchy and control, we focus on more proactive, transparent, equitous mechanisms of governance between various agencies located at the centre, state and panchayats. By suggesting a ‘Mission Mode’ implementation system for states, we also recommend taking measures for making states as ‘stakeholders’ in the key capacity building areas for deepening ‘institutionalized trust and reciprocity’ between the Center and States for effective implementation and monitoring. Unless state governments, district administrations and Panchyati raj institutions develop long term stakes, the implementation of MGNREGA would continue to be suffering from distortions and deficits. There are those who marvel at the extent, depth and significance of MGNREGA, and there are also those who see it as fragile and inadequate in meeting the demands of durable human security and sustainable development. On balance, both optimists and cynics would agree that MGNREGA reveals more than it conceals about securing durable basis for livelihood security, transforming the lives of millions of poor and the rising participatory forms of democratic governance at multiple, overlapping social environments in the Indian Society. We are sure that with new governance reforms in place and innovative capacity building support systems available at all levels of implementation from the National to Gram Sabha level, MGNREGA has the potential to usher in what Jawaharlal Nehru evocatively called “tryst with destiny”, a destiny in which poor become ‘game changers”!
