Showing posts with label Govt. Schemes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Govt. Schemes. Show all posts

RGGVY – lighting up rural areas

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Rural electrification has been regarded as a vital programme for the development of rural areas. It is now well accepted that electricity has become one of the basic human needs and every household must have access to electricity. In rural India, supply of electricity is needed for broad based economic and human development. The National Electricity Policy envisages supply of quality power to rural areas for 24 hours. The Rural Electrification Policy aims at providing access to electricity to all households.

The definition of village electrification has been made stricter to ensure availability of sufficient electricity infrastructure in each village before declaring it as electrified. In accordance with the Census 2001, about 1.2 lakh villages were un-electrified in the country.

Keeping in view the slow pace of rural electrification by the States, the Government of IndiaRajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) as one of its flagship programme in March 2005 with an objective to electrify over one lakh un-electrified villages and to provide free electricity connections to 2.34 Crore rural BPL households. The infrastructure being provided under the scheme is sufficient to provide electricity connections to all households. The APL families are being encouraged to take electricity connections from the distribution utility after fulfilling standard terms and conditions of the utility for the purpose. launched

The Scheme

The scheme provides 90% capital subsidy for the projects and covers following activities: Rural Electricity Distribution Backbone (REDB); Creation of Village Electrification Infrastructure (VEI); Decentralized Distributed Generation (DDG) and supply and Rural Household Electrification of Below Poverty Line Households.

Under the scheme, Decentralized Distributed Generation (DDG) projects based on new & renewable sources can also be taken up by States, wherever such solution is found more cost effective. The detailed guidelines for setting up DDG projects under RGGVY have been issued.

RGGVY continued in XIth Plan

During the X Plan, 235 projects for 234 districts were sanctioned at an estimated cost of Rs.9732 Crore to electrify 68,763 villages and to provide free electricity connections to 83.1 lakh BPL households. 38,525 villages were electrified by the end of X Plan.

The continuation of RGGVY in the XI Plan was sanctioned by the Government on 3rd January 2008 with a provision of Rs.28,000 Crore capital subsidy. The states having large number of un-electrified villages and households (Assam. Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) have been given more emphasis under the scheme. Other areas of focus are special category states of north-east, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand, districts having international boundaries and districts affected by naxal activities. Habitations above 100 population are being covered under the scheme.

During XI Plan, 327 projects costing Rs.16,268 Crore have been sanctioned for electrification of 49,383 villages and for providing 162 lakh electricity connections BPL households.

So far, Ministry of Power has sanctioned 562 villages for 534 districts to electrify 118,146 villages and to provide free electricity connections to 2.45 Crore BPL rural households. As on 15th July 2009, 63,040 villages have been electrified and 63.6 lakh free electricity connections have been released to BPL households. It is targeted to complete all the sanctioned projects before March 2012.

Implementation

Rural Electrification Corporation is the nodal agency for implementation of the scheme. Services of power sector CPSUs namely Powergrid, NTPC, NHPC and DVC have been made available to the State Power Utilities for fast implementation of the projects.

For effective and quality implementation of the projects; the Ministry has adopted turnkey mode of implementation, three-tier quality monitoring mechanism and mile stone based project monitoring. The states have been asked to provide minimum 6 to 8 hours of electricity to the villages electrified under the scheme. It has also been made mandatory to establish franchisees in the RGGVY electrified villages for effective distribution management. The franchising of distribution management is creating a good employment opportunity to the rural youth. So far, franchisees have been established in 99,643 villages.

Monitoring

The Ministry has asked the States to constitute State Level Coordination Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary and hold its regular meetings to resolve inter-departmental issues, which badly affect speedy implementation. The Ministry has also asked the States to constitute District Level Committees with members from all the stake holders including members of Parliament & Legislative Assembly to resolve the local issues and to review the progress of the projects. It has been experienced that the progress was better in those States, where such Committees are active and holding their meetings regularly.

Under the scheme, the Ministry has also undertaken training of C & D employees of the State Power Utilities and franchisees. It is targeted to impart training to 75,000 employees and 40,000 franchisees during the XI Plan. During 2009-10, 2500 employees and 5000 franchisees are planned to be trained.

Under RGGVY, States were asked to notify their Rural Electrification Plans as a commitment for supplying electricity for minimum period of 6 to 8 hours, making arrangement of sufficient power for energizing the lines and suitable transmission and sub-transmission infrastructure to supply power to the distribution infrastructure created under the scheme. 10 states namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, J&K, Karnataka, Kerala, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand are yet to make such commitments by way of notifying their RE Plans.
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Green Tribunal Bill has many flaws

Posted in Labels: , , , , | 12:41 AM

India’s National Green Tribunal Bill has evoked much criticism over the issues of accountability, biasness and restricting appeals from rights groups, notes environment and health policy analyst Gopal Krishna. A lot of reform is needed before it is passed by the Parliament, he says.


The National Green Tribunal (NGT) Bill, 2009 that would judge environmental disputes was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Jairam Ramesh, Environment Minister on 31 July, 2009.

The Bill provides "for the establishment of a National Green Tribunal for the effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources ..." The tribunal will have the same powers as a civil court. It will subsume various state-level authorities that address environmental issues, as well as committees created by the Supreme Court for that purpose.

The NGT comes in response to the 186th Report of Law Commission of India on the Proposal to Constitute Environmental Courts in September 2003. This report had noted, "the National Environmental Appellate Authority (NEAA) constituted under the NEAA Act, 1997, for the limited purpose of providing a forum to review the administrative decisions on Environment Impact Assessment, had very little work.

It appears that since the year 2000, no Judicial Member has been appointed [Eds: Numerous articles in India Together have reported on the NEAA's dysfunction]. So far as the National Environmental Tribunal (NET) Act, 1995 is concerned, the legislation has yet to be notified despite the expiry of eight years. Since it was enacted by Parliament, the Tribunal under the Act is yet to be constituted. Thus, these two Tribunals are non-functional and remain only on paper."

The NGT Bill, 2009 is meant to replace NEAA Act of 1997 and NET Act of 1995.
While it seems to be a step in the right direction, the Bill itself includes a number of flawed passages, which would need to be corrected before it is deemed fit for passage from Parliament as an Act.

Broadly, there are four kinds of problems.

Restrictions on who can approach the Tribunal: Judicial and quasi-judicial institutions cannot be strong if only a few people, conveniently selected by the authorities, are allowed to approach them. Moreover, since the courts have recognised that the environment falls within the purview of Article 21, it is clear that all persons have a duty to protect the environment and a corresponding right to question the adverse impact on environment and human health. But the Bill ignores this principle.

Instead, in Section 18 of the Bill, the locus standi of a person to file an application before the Tribunal reads, "any representative body or organisation functioning in the field of environment, with permission of the Tribunal" can file an application for grant of relief or compensation or settlement of dispute to the Tribunal. "There is no reason why only an environmental organisation can file appeals before the Tribunal"
 
This is highly problematic. There is no reason why only an environmental organisation can file appeals before the Tribunal. Why not human rights organisations, or public health institutions, labour groups, or even other plaintiffs. And it's laughable that the 'permission of the Tribunal' is needed to file applications before it.
This portion of the Bill should simply be deleted, before it heads inevitably towards a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court.

Appointment of experts: The intent of most appointed bodies can be judged from its composition, and on that score the Bill fares poorly. The proposed composition of the Tribunal follows a tried, tested and failed track; anyone who has read the 32-page Bill is bound to wonder if the Tribunal is meant to be a club for retired IAS officers and technocrats.

As it stands, the expert members of the Tribunal would need "administrative experience of fifteen years including experience of five years in dealing with environmental matters in the Central or State Government, or in a reputed National or State level institution". This is undisguised code for the 'jobs for the boys' program that nearly all retired senior bureaucrats join.

It has been a constant concern of the Supreme Court, which has been expressed in several orders that an expert body (the Tribunal, in the present case) should consist of experts in relevant fields and not the bureaucrats.

All earlier attempts in handling the environmental problems through the NEAA and other bodies have failed because their control was left in the hands of bureaucrats. Had such appointees been competent, those government departments or institutions where they served would have surely been instrumental in protecting the environment, which is clearly not the case and which had led to the necessity of the Tribunal. In fact it is the colossal failure of administrators that has created the compelling logic for the Tribunal itself.

"It would be infinitely better for the Tribunal's expert members to be of technical and scientific background" What would be infinitely better is for the Tribunal's expert members to be of technical and scientific background, experts in public health, occupational health, social science with relevant experience in environmental and occupational health, etc. with a minimum experience of 15 years. That would bring forth real experts.
 
Limiting the period of accountability: Section 14 (3) of Chapter III in the Bill deals with Tribunal's jurisdiction, powers and proceedings. It reads, "No application for adjudication of dispute under this section shall be entertained by the Tribunal unless it is made within a period of six months from the date on which the cause of action for such dispute first arose".

It is not clear why there should be such a restriction. Disputes can arise at any time, and it is silly to expect that only those that arise in the first six months should be entertained by the Tribunal. The Bill is also silent on where one should take disputes that rise beyond this window of time!

Similarly, Section 15(3) reads, "No application of grant of any compensation or relief or restitution of property or environment under this section shall be entertained by the Tribunal unless it is made within a period of five years from the date on which the cause of such compensation or relief first arose." The adverse effects of various environmental and public health hazards - silicosis, asbestosis, radiation exposure, chemical exposure, for instance - often take more than five years to manifest themselves.

Therefore, the fixed period of five years should be removed, or, alternately, the Bill should specify who will be liable for adverse effects discovered beyond this time limit.

Section 16 that deals with the appellate jurisdiction of the Tribunal in the matter of "any person aggrieved" by orders or decisions of the Tribunal or National Biodiversity Authority or State Biodiversity Board, under the stipulated provision of the NTG Bill, the person aggrieved can file an appeal "within a period of 30 days from the date on which the order or decision or direction is communicated to him".

The period of filing the appeal is too short, and should be extended to 60 days, as often individuals are prevented by unavoidable situations from filing appeals within 30 days.

Implicit threat to petitioners: Section 22(2) of the Bill reads: "Where the Tribunal holds that that a claim is not maintainable, or false or vexatious, ... the Tribunal may ... make an order to award costs, including lost benefits due to any interim injunction." This provision is quite discouraging. In general, the courts (Tribunal in this case) always have a general right to impose costs of trials and others costs upon petitioners or the accused. There is no need to include this explicitly in Section 22(2) .

This will deter concerned citizens from bringing environmental issues before the Tribunal, fearing the imposition of heavy costs in case their claim is disallowed.

"There is much that needs to be revised in the draft before the law is enacted. Whether the Environment Ministry now takes up such reform will be watched keenly"
 
Moreover, this clause is one-sided; it should be amended, at the very least, to say that costs can be imposed on defendants too, in cases where they are found to have misled the Tribunal through their vexatious actions.
In any event, the correct way to tackle this is for the Tribunal to decide whether, prima facie, the claim made by the petitioner is allowable before it, and also whether any defendants have a fair amount of explaining to do. If that is done, there will be almost no need for imposing any costs of trial and/or punitive costs on either party at the end of the trial.

With all these worries, there is much that needs to be revised in the draft before the law is enacted. Whether the Environment Ministry now takes up such reform will be watched keenly. Many observers have despaired of the Ministry's functioning during the last 10 years, and are hopeful that a new Minister, Jairam Ramesh, will steer a different course than the blatantly pro-industry stances of his immediate predecessors. The final version of the NGT Bill will be an important test of that hope.

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PowerMin cuts target for 11th Plan period

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The power ministry does not believe the capacity addition of 78,700 mega watts (MW) remains a feasible target for the 11th Plan period, without placing particular emphasis on the final 8,000 MW to achieve the goal. As a result of project delays on more than 80 power projects, a shortage of manpower and lack of fuel, power minister Sushilkumar Shinde unofficially revised the target to 70,000 MW during today’s conference for Accelerated Development of Indian Power Sector for 12th Plan and Beyond.

Although the minister said “

we are now on target for the future
”, stretching beyond 2012, his statement does not erase the shortfalls of existing plans. Thus, raising questions about whether missing current goals will make the Centre’s future targets — such as more than 100,000 MW capacity addition during future five-year-plans — as unachievable as the current objectives. Even if the ministry reaches the 70,000-MW mark, which the Planning Commission deputy chairperson calls a “hopeful” target, “then it’s clear that in 12th Plan, we’ll have to make 100,000 MW,” said Montek Singh Ahluwalia. “These are rough estimates,” he said. “To revise the targets, it would require Planning Commission to say we’ve scaled down our targets.”

With seven months remaining in the 10th Plan period, the power ministry is reporting that only about half of the plan’s capacity addition target of 41,100 MW has been reached. The potential for the Centre, state and private projects to meet this target is bleak. Power players have added just 21,180 MW to the nation’s total generation capacity, which stands at around 151,000 MW, resulting in a shortfall of approximately 20,000 MW. The Centre leads in achievements during the 10th Plan with 13,005 MW added, followed by the states which have managed to add 6,244.64 MW and the private sector with 1,930.6 MW.

“The sector is likely to achieve about two-thirds of the target,” reads a special report issued by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. “The shortfall is due to overly optimistic targets set by the government.” During the first 100 days of the newly formed UPA government, the ministry had set a target of 5,653 MW. According to Central Electricity Authority data, 1,681 MW has been achieved since June 1. The government will reach its hundredth day in power on August 31.

In its plans to bump power capacity, the ministry holds a drastic 37,700 MW difference between the 10th and 11th Plans. Despite specific initiatives to meet or reach the 11th Plan target, India’s power shortages are likely to remain fairly high in the 11th Plan as the potential for supply-demand balance stretches into the 12th Plan. During the capacity overhaul from the 10th Plan to the 12th Plan, a transition will take place on the matter of sharing the burden of expansion.

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NMITLI Scheme

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New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) Scheme

As a part of New Millennium initiative, the Government mounted a farsighted R&D Programme named ‘New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI)’ in Public-Private Partnership mode in 2000-01. The programme was announced as part of the Union Budget in the year 2000. The responsibility of conceptualizing, evolving and implementing the programme has been assigned to the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR).

The trigger for NMITLI programme was:

  • From incremental innovation to disruptive innovation;
  • Tolerance for risk taking and failure;
  • Best minds in India to take up the grand challenge for collaborative excellence; and
  • Technology leadership.

The NMITLI focus is to:

  • identify niche areas where India can gain leadership in about 10-15 years;
  • develop projects involving best brains of the country through a rigorous process;
  • build knowledge network of partners from public funded institutions and private industries;
  • develop new methods of working together for collaborative excellence;
  • focus on proof-of-concept; and
  • provide a pipeline of cutting edge Indian innovation for conventional technology financing bodies as against the ‘usual safe bets.

Today, the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) is the largest public-private-partnership effort within the R&D domain in the country. It looks beyond today’s technology and thus seeks to build, capture and retain for India a leadership position by synergising the best competencies of publicly funded R&D institutions, academia and private industry. The Government finances and plays a catalytic role. It is based on the premise of consciously and deliberately identifying, selecting and supporting potential winners. NMITLI has carved out a unique niche in the innovation space and enjoys an excellent reputation.

NMITLI has so far evolved 57 largely networked projects in diverse areas viz. Agriculture & Plant Biotechnology, General Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Materials, Information and Communication Technology and Energy. These projects involve 80 industry partners & 270 R&D groups from different institutions. Approximately 1700 researchers are engaged in these projects. These 57 projects cumulatively have had an outlay of approximately Rs. 500 crore.

NMITLI Achievements:

The programme has generated about 100 international patents and 150 publications in peer reviewed journals. The important achievements are:

  • Paradigm shift in leather processing-From chemical to biochemical route
  • Pilot plants for separating cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin from bagasse
  • Pilot plants for producing lactic acid from sugarcane juice
  • Bio-informatics software viz. Bio-Suite, GenoCluster, Bio-SuiteC and Darshee
  • Developed three variants of SofComp (Simple office Computer) devices including Mobilis
  • Anti-psoriasis formulation in Phase-III Clinical Trial
  • Lysostaphin in Phase-II Clinical Trial
  • Anti-tuberculosis molecule in Phase-II Clinical Trial
  • poly herbal formulations for diabetes, arthritis and hepatic disorder
  • Micro-PCR based immuno-diagnostics for detecting eye infections
  • Development of new plant varieties of Mentha piperita
  • Development of Triple-Play broadband technology

Key components of CCEA Note:

Enthused by the success of the programme and on the recommendations of several committees, Government has approved the expansion of NMITLI programme to experiment newer models of innovation development. The key components of the proposal are:

Funding along with industry (50:50 Initiative)

There are many Indian companies who are doing financially very well but do not have the necessary expertise and intellectual resources to develop focused network projects for development of technologies/products in their line of activities. Their efforts need complementation from suitable R&D institutions and guidance from recognized peers to develop and commercialize newer technologies/products. Therefore, NMITLI will leverage its experiential base to encourage and assist such companies for developing network projects for those companies in product/technology development through a specific scheme called ‘NMITLI 50:50 initiative’.

Co-financing with Venture Capital funds

Many venture capitals are limited in scope and risk taking, due to lack of domain knowledge within the organization. Venture Capitals are therefore interested in joining hands with NMITLI, which has strong domain knowledge base, to jointly finance projects. Such projects would be identified and evolved following the procedures established by NMITLI. The funding would be joint with pre-determined ratio, but not more than 50% contribution from NMITLI. These projects are envisaged to be monitored by a joint team of experts as per the NMITLI monitoring mechanism. The proposed funding would follow the venture funding norms. The successes and failures resulting from the projects will be shared on equitable basis.

Setting up of NMITLI innovation centres in selected areas for long term sustained efforts

Some areas need long term sustained support with requisite human resource as well as infrastructure, assembled at one place to cross the threshold of intellectual barrier in order to generate globally competitive technologies and products, IPR, and high quality publications. It is envisaged to set up ‘NMITLI Innovation Centres’ in PPP mode for sustained efforts in some selected areas for example, Photovoltaics, Fuel Cells, White LEDs, Industrial Enzymes, Medical Implants, Vaccine development, Seed Development etc.

Support to post NMITLI projects

Despite the excellent R&D and developments, the technologies and products developed in the laboratory do need market seeding, pilot plant studies to refine the development. The companies need CSIR’s hand holding to develop and package the technologies/products further. The concept of ‘Post-NMITLI’ will fulfill the objective of providing financial and technical assistance for pre-commercialization related activities such as scale up, pilot plants, field trials, market seeding of products, market surveys, etc.

Acquisition of early stage relevant knowledge / IP for portfolio building

External ideas / leads / IP acquisition are assuming greater significance in the chain of innovation and mind to market. The availability of a large number of unencumbered IP (being developed in several laboratories globally) is providing a fillip to this approach. Several countries across the globe are striving to take advantage of the diversity of creativity available in different parts of world and integrate with its own developments to bring out new products / processes for global competitiveness. Since NMITLI aims to provide the Technological Leadership to the Indian industry, it becomes imperative for NMITLI to adopt such practices to achieve its objectives. Such acquisitions shall be in chosen areas with a view to creating a portfolio where NMITLI projects are in operation.

Crossing the geographical boundaries

It is increasingly being felt that to achieve leadership in niche technology areas, relying totally on internal expertise and capabilities may not be adequate. To achieve the objective of global leadership, it would be helpful to broaden the programme by bringing in international expertise. The international expertise may be in the form of expert advise of international experts at various stages of project development and implementation, involving international companies for product/technology development and commercialization at global scale, and engaging research institutions and/or CROs across the globe where Indian expertise need outside complementation.

Joint development and support of projects with other departments of science and technology as well as economic ministries

Many government departments are engaged in research and development activities in areas of relevance to them. These activities often have considerable degree of overlap with other scientific departments. However, these departments’s expertise is limited to undertake multi-disciplinary projects in cutting edge areas requiring wide-spectrum of intellectual and infrastructural inputs. Such multi-disciplinary areas need expertise, inputs and concerted efforts from all concerned government departments to generate IPR, technologies and products besides high quality publications. Therefore, part of the NMITLI funds will be utilized to generate inter-departmental projects in the XI FY Plan. The proposed scheme apart from generating intellectual capital, technologies and products in cutting edge areas would act as a catalyst to bring better co-ordination among various departments of government in the R&D sphere.

Relaxing the condition of more than 50% shareholding by Indians/Non-resident Indians

Many oversees companies through their R&D efforts using local resources, produce goods for local as well as overseas consumption and are thus contributing to the growth of Indian economy. They also employ Indian workforce. In some areas, such companies are better equipped to upscale the technology/products and sell it under their brand name. Further, they can become a vehicle for taking Indian technologies and products into global market easily thereby contributing more to Indian economy. The provision permits relaxation of the condition of more than 50% shareholding by Indians/Non-resident Indians to become an industrial partner in NMITLI projects.

Flexibility to convert loan into equity

Launching a new product or setting a knowledge based new venture requires investment on many fronts particularly for capital-intensive infrastructure, manpower, technology costs, working capital etc. Governments all over the world, particularly in developed countries endeavor to support entrepreneurs in different ways to ease the burden of initial investment. The industrial partner under NMITLI has to invest for commercialization of technology/products and at the same time has to return the loan to CSIR albeit in installments. This burden of loan repayment can be further reduced by converting loan into equity. Therefore, with this provision and on the request of industrial partner, loan given to it may be converted into equity.

Advantages of NMITLI Expansion:

As others are emulating, NMITLI is endeavoring to position higher in the innovation development. The proposal will therefore:

  • enable CSIR to experiment newer models of innovation development in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode, which could later become models for others to emulate;
  • encourage to develop products / processes based on innovation and thereby help Indian industry emerge as a technology leader in the identified domain;
  • encourage venture capital funds to venture into more risky R&D areas;
  • act as a catalyst to bring better co-ordination among various departments of government in the R&D sphere and avoid unnecessary duplication, apart from generating intellectual capital, technologies and products in cutting edge areas; and
  • enhance national competitiveness.

Source : Press Information Bureau
Date : February 27, 2009

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Taking goals of NREGA-I

Posted in Labels: , | 11:10 PM


Envisioning NREGA-II is key to realise the unfulfilled dreams of NREGA-I, which has failed thus far to break free from a debilitating past.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) promises a revolutionary demand-driven, people-centred development programme. Planning, implementation and social audit by gram sabhas and gram panchayats can engender millions of sustainable livelihoods following initial rounds of wage employment.

But NREGA-I has had to battle against the legacy of an ignominious past.
Rural development programmes over the last 60 years have been dependent on the munificence of the state . They have been implemented top-down, using labour-displacing machines and contractors who have customarily run roughshod over basic human rights.

NREGA is poised to change all that. And there is no doubt that its promise has charged the hearts and minds of the rural poor with unprecedented hopes and expectations. But the first three years of the programme have also shown that NREGA suffers from many ills leakages and delays in wage payments, non-payment of statutory minimum wages, work only for an average of 50 days per annum as against the promised 100 days, fudged muster rolls, few durable assets and even fewer sustainable livelihoods.

Envisioning NREGA-II is important to realise the unfulfilled dreams of NREGA-I, which has failed thus far to break free of the shackles of a debilitating past. At least seven key elements need to characterise NREGA-II. One, strengthening the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) by providing them requisite technical and social human resource so that plans can be made and implemented genuinely bottom-up. Without a cadre of social mobilisers or lok sewaks (at least one in every village), it is difficult to convert NREGA into a truly demand-driven programme, where works are undertaken in response to the needs and aspirations of a fully aware citizenry. Otherwise, the current practice of works being imposed from above will continue unchecked. And without much greater technical support to the PRIs, it will be hard to stop the backdoor entry of contractors.

Two, there needs to be a renewed focus on improving the productivity of agriculture and convergence to engender allied sustainable livelihoods. NREGA is not the usual run-of-the-mill relief and welfare programme of the past. It is not merely about transferring cash to people in distress. It is about creating durable assets that will ultimately lead to a reduced dependence of people on NREGA. The percentage of agricultural labour households in India who own land is around 50 in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, 60 in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh and over 70 in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. And if we focus on Adivasis, the proportion shoots up to as high as 76-87 per cent in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. Millions of our small and marginal farmers are forced to work under NREGA because the productivity of their own farms is too low to make ends meet. NREGA will become really powerful when it helps to rebuild this decimated productivity of small farms and allows these people to return to full-time farming, thereby also reducing the load on NREGA.

What would accelerate this strengthening of small and marginal farming is the proposal to allow assets creation through NREGA on farmers lands. This is element three of NREGA-II and would help the poorest who constitute 80 per cent of farmers in India. It is not entirely clear why certain sections of civil society are opposed to this idea, which will also mitigate the apparent conflict perceived by some Gandhians between small farmers and NREGA. Especially given the just demand for extending the work guarantee of 100 days to every person (as promised in the Congress manifesto), there is need to extend the scope of NREGA to small and marginal farmers lands. This remarkably inclusive provision can potentially transform Indian agriculture, which is crying out for greater public investment.

Apparently there is an apprehension that if work is allowed on poor farmers lands, the provision will be misused by powerful rich farmers in the village. Let me begin by stating that Magsaysay award winner (2009)Deep Joshi believes that NREGA should actually be used for assets creation on all lands, much as in a watershed programme, so that plans can be made and implemented on a watershed basis. I disagree with him only because I feel priority must be given to the poor. But I fail to understand opposition to work on farms of the poor themselves. Misuse of NREGA provisions is a genuine fear but that should be addressed with element four of NREGA-II strengthening social audit.

Here we have two possible ways forward, what I call MKSS-I and MKSS-II. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) blazed the trail of social audit in Rajasthan. MKSS-I, a process that has been fraught with violent opposition from vested interests, and by the MKSS own admission, has been less than successful. MKSS-II refers to the social audit pro-actively promoted by the government of Andhra Pradesh and guided by the MKSS that has achieved unprecedented success. However, this remains a predominantly top-down approach with relatively weak roots. What we need to do is to combine the strengths of MKSS-I with those of MKSS-II, because social audit is undoubtedly the weakest link of NREGA so far, even though it was hailed initially as its most attractive differentia specifica. Pramathesh Ambasta, National Coordinator, Civil Society Consortium on NREGA, is working on a blueprint of a National Authority for NREGA, which should become a matter of serious reflection and debate if we are to strengthen social audit, evaluation and grievance redress, by making them independent of the implementing agency.

Element five has to be more of creative use of information technology (IT), which can greatly strengthen social audit and reduce chances of fraud and leakage. As in Andhra Pradesh, computer systems need to be tightly integrated end-to-end so that any work registered in the system is alive, status-visible and amenable to tracking. Delays at any stage can thus be immediately identified and corrected. The system keeps track of the work from the day the work-ID is generated and flags delays in the payment cycle as soon as they occur. Because the network secures all levels from the ground up to the State headquarters and data are transparently and immediately available on the website, a delay at any stage is instantly noticed by the monitoring system. Free availability of this information on the website also facilitates public scrutiny, greater transparency and better social audit.

IT has one more new dimension. Ever since it was decided to make payments only through banks and post offices, NREGA-I has run into serious trouble caused by delays and corruption in payments. Workers, especially in remote rural India, find it very hard to travel long distances to get money. This promotes a nightmarish variety of malpractices. It is now imperative that we roll out the banking correspondent model using handheld computer devices and mobile phones to all gram panchayats in India by the end of the Eleventh Plan period. The government needs to commit the support required to make this happen in a time-bound manner to achieve unprecedented financial inclusion on the doorstep for our poorest people living in distant hinterlands. The demand-driven, pro-poor unique ID project can play a key role in this regard and also greatly benefit from the demand created by this exercise.

Element six of NREGA-II is a reformed schedule of rates (SoRs). The commitment to pay real (indexed to inflation) wages of Rs.100 a day can never be fulfilled if we continue to use antediluvian SoRs that were meant to serve the contractor-machine raj. Using these rates will inevitably underpay labour, especially women. We need gender, ecology and labour-capacity sensitive SoRs that are themselves indexed to the real minimum wage, undergoing revisions with each revision in the statutory wage. Otherwise, complaints of underpaid labour will never cease.

Finally, element seven the role of civil society, which is crucial in making NREGA realise its potential. Whether it is grass-roots activists assisting PRIs in social mobilisation, developmental NGOs building capacities of panchayats and supporting them in planning and implementing NREGA works, academic institutions helping to improve the standards of evaluation or eminent citizens acting as ombudsmen, there is an urgent need to mandate civil society action in strengthening NREGA. On its part, civil society needs to adopt a strategy of dialogue and support to make NREGA a success. Revamped and revitalised CAPART (Council for Peoples Action and Rural Technology) and NIRD (National Institute of Rural Development) based on vibrant partnerships with civil society could help facilitate this change.

Each of these seven elements was part of the original NREGA vision. What NREGA-II will do is to place renewed emphasis on key aspects of this vision and build new strategies to help the programme realise its true potential. It is good that the Ministry of Rural Development is engaging in detailed discussions with various stakeholders as also the Central Employment Guarantee Council before unfurling the NREGA-II blueprint.

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