Implementation of MGNREGA in Bihar

A Research Paper presented by:

Subhendra Nath Sanyal (India)

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for obtaining the degree of

MASTERS OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Specialization:Poverty Studies and Policy Analysis

(POV)

Members of the examining committee:

Supervisor’s name (Dr Andrew Fischer) Reader’s name ( Prof. Dr Ashwani Saith)

The Hague, The NetherlandsNovember, 2011.

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Disclaimer:This document represents part of the author’s study pro-gramme while at the Institute of Social Studies. The views stated therein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute.

Inquiries:Postal address: Institute of Social Studies

P.O. Box 29776 2502 LT The Hague, The Netherlands

Location: Kortenaerkade 12 2518 AX The Hague The Netherlands

Telephone: +31 70 426 0460 Fax: +31 70 426 0799

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Contents

List of Tables iiiList of Acronyms vAbstract vi

Chapter 1: Introduction 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Research Question 11.3 Methodology Used 2

1.3.1 Semi structured interview: 21.3.2 Focus group discussion (FGD): 31.3.3 Using the secondary data: 4

Chapter 2: The Concept and Rational 52.1 EGP and NREGA 52.2 NREGA and India 7

Chapter 3: The Location 103.1 Bihar and NREGA 10

Chapter-4: Analysis of Field work 164.1 Socio- Economic situation 164.2. Socio-political situation 214.3. Design of the program 27

Chapter 5: Findings and Conclusion 33References 36

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List of TablesTable 1: Performance of NREGA in the country on a

yearly basis. 7Table 2: State wise performance of NREGA in 16 major

states of India. 8Table 3: Status of women’s participation of women in 16

major states of India in 2010-11. 9Table 4: Performance of NREGA in Bihar and India on a

yearly basis 13Table 5: Performance of NREGA in Bihar as compared

other similar poor states. 14Table 5: Status of women’s participation in NREGA in

Bihar compared to other similar states in the finan-cial year 2010-11. 14

Table 6: Status of participation of job card holders in the schemes. 14

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List of Acronyms

DLR- Department of Labour ResourcesEGP- Employment Guarantee Program.ELR - Employer of last Resort.FGD - Focus group discussion.GDP- Gross Domestic Product.IFPRI- The International Food Policy Research InstituteIHD- Institute for Human Development.IIPA- Indian Institute of Public Administration.MGNREGA – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment

Guarantee ActMORD- Ministry of Rural DevelopmentNREGA– National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.NREGS- National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.PACS- Poorest Area Civil SocietyPO- Program Officer.PRI- Panchayti Raj InstitutionSC- Scheduled CasteST- Scheduled Tribe.UNDP- United Nations Development Program

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Abstract

The world’s biggest Employment Guarantee Program, India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGs) has been in operation from the year 2005 follow-ing the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act( NREGA, hereafter) being passed by the parliament of India. The program is self-targeted in nature and is de-signed to provide 100 days of employment to rural house-holds and to serve as safety net. The enactment of the act can be seen as a significant step towards the initiative to operationalize the right to work as per the directive prin-ciples of Indian constitution. More broadly its aim is to re-duce rural poverty by creating productive rural infrastruc-ture to foster economic growth. The current study looks at the performance of NREGA in the state of Bihar where des-pite of need, the uptake of the program is low. The study is an analysis of the performance of NREGA in Bihar from three perspective, the overall man days of employment gen-erated to the beneficiaries, the participation of women and the ratio of job cards issued vis a vis actual participation of beneficiaries in the program. The study is based on the primary data through in depth interviews and focus group discussion in six Gram Panchayats of Muzaffarpur and Gaya Districts of the state.

The study reveals on the basis of primary data that in Bihar the performance of NREGA is much influenced by the prevailing social structures formed due to, socio-economic situations and socio-political situation that exists since past and which influence the proximate reasons as mentioned in the literature. It also reveals the inherent gaps in the design of the program. The paper points out that the struc-tures that exist in the society influence the implementation processes of NREGs in the state and explains how it hinders the functioning of PRIs (the prime implementation body of NREGS) which results in low performance of the act. This paper also tries to analyse the importance of designing the program keeping into account the complex the existing so-cial structure to meet its objective to provide economic safety net for the rural poor and eventually reduce poverty.

Keywords

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NREGA, NREGs, Performance, Participation, Uptake, India, Bihar, Muzafferpur, Gaya.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 IntroductionEmployment Guarantee or government as an employer of last resort (ELR) has been used by many countries as cent-ral theme for poverty reduction and viewed as the most im-portant area of intervention for welfare (Kaboub 2007:2-3). In India since 2005 after enactment of National Rural Em-ployment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the program became the main strategy in addressing the poverty persisting in the rural areas. After six years of its initiation, the program is working well in the states of Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh whereas in some states as that of Assam, Haryana and Punjab the program is not working well. Ironically it appears that in states where the need of such kind of pro-gram is more, the program is not working well. The most extreme case is of Bihar in which the program is not per-forming as expected in spite of the fact that it aptly re-sponds to the need of the people. Bihar has the largest per-centage of rural population in the country, with rising num-ber of the population joining the work force and pressure on land increasing rapidly. On the other side, agriculture, which is the back bone of rural economy has no longer re-mained enough remunerative and is facing the challenge of low productivity (Shah, 2009). This is affecting everyone in the area .The plot size is getting smaller and smaller. Re-sources are getting scarce. Data reflects that the percent-age of farmers having small land holding has risen to 80% in the state (Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2004: 53). This im-plies that wage requirement particularly in rural area is re-quired not only for landless but also for the small landhold-ers to supplement their income.

1.2 Research QuestionThis paper examines, ‘Why’ NREGA appears to be not

performing well in Bihar? Why people are not joining in the program where Government is committed to provide em-ployment on one hand and huge portion of population re-quire employment on the other? In order to examine, why the state has only generated 34 days of employment to the beneficiary in the financial year 2010-11 which is far below than the other states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh

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(where majority of population lives in rural areas).Why par-ticipation of women in the program is as low as (28%) in the state and why only 17% of job card holders participated in the schemes undertaken in the program in last financial year1.

In order to analyse the performance of the program in Bihar this paper focuses on the social structural causes in-fluencing in implementation of the program. These factors are important because in the state despite of need of the people the uptake is low. Whereas other states with similar socio-economic and cultural situation as that of Bihar, the program is performing much better. More over in the re-cent time the state is among the better governed state among India as compared to other states even then per-formance of the program is not picking up and people are less keen in participating in the schemes under NREGA. This paper majorly focuses on the socio economic situation, socio political situation and design of the program which effects in participation of people in the program. This pa-per also compares the performance of NREGA in Bihar with other states and tries to analyse that how these situations exists in the states.

1.3 Methodology UsedTo carry out the study the researcher used mainly three

research tools for data collection to analyse the reason for low uptake of the scheme in the state. The primary data was collected from the following location. Sl No. District Pan-

chayat1Pan-chayat2

Pan-chayat3

1 Muzaf-farpur

Pilkhi-Ga-jpati

Mirpur Chaksen

2 Gaya Jikatia, Bela Kachori

The research tools used were:

1.3.1 Semi structured interview: Semi structured interviews was used as main tool for

the research. In total of 36 interviews were conducted in six different Panchayats2 of the two districts in the state. 21 interviews were conducted with directs beneficiaries and

1 All the figures are taken from http://nrega.nic.in ac-cessed on 1st of October 2011

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non-beneficiaries of the program who participates in the schemes. The respondents were selected during the village level meetings conducted before the interview process where the objective of the research was briefed to the com-munity. Among the beneficiaries those respondents were considered who had worked in the program till last year. Non- beneficiaries are those who had worked in the scheme before the last year and backed out thereafter. Apart from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries interviewed, four more respondents were interviewed who had large land holdings and were big farmers in the area and they engage labourers for their own agriculture. Though they do not participate in NREGs but has significant influence in the area. Five Elec-ted Panchayat Representatives known as Mukhia were also interviewed. Two Program Officers (PO)3, three eminent academicians and one senior civil servant were also inter-viewed. The selections of the respondents were done to make the data collection more representative.

Respondent selection chart:

Districts Muzaffarpur Gaya Total

Categories of Re-spondents

Pilkhi-Ga-jpati

Mir-pur

Chak-sen

Jika-tia

Bela

Ka-chori

Benefi-ciary par-ticipating in NREGs

2 2 2 2 2 2 12

Benefi-ciary not participat-ing in NREGs

2 1 1 1 2 2 9

Panchayat 1 1 1 1 1 5

2 Panchayat comprises of 3-5 villages and Panchayati Raj is a system of governance in which gram panchayats are the basic units of administration

3 Program officers are government official responsible for supervision of NREGA in district.

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leaders(Mukhia)Big land holders

1 1 1 1 4

PO 1 1 2Academi-cians

3 3

Senior civil ser-vant

1 1

Different sets of questions were prepared for the inter-view for the different types of respondents. For participants of the NREGs the question asked were, how many days of employment did they get in the program, processes in-volved in getting the job card, processes for demanding jobs, how they received payments, how the jobs were being allocated, role of Panchayat for job allocation, how caste dynamics influence in job allocations, power relation with in the village, landowner-labour relation , effect of land distri-bution pattern in the program, participation of people be-longing to socially advanced section (upper caste) in the scheme, role of the upper castes in finalization of sites in the schemes, why people migrate and do not participate in the program, who participate in the program, women’s par-ticipation in the scheme, as per their perception what work should be taken up under the schemes and so on. For Panchayt Leaders(Mukhias), POs and to other respond-ents the questions asked were how Gram Sabhas (Village council meeting) are conducted, how are jobs demanded by the beneficiaries and how are they registered, what is the process of finalization of the schemes, challenges in imple-menting the schemes, the limiting factors for taking up new schemes and closing of old schemes, processes of releasing payments to the beneficiaries, how people influence in the schemes, what are the possible reason for low performance of the program, what measures are needed to be taken that can increase the participation in the program and what is the impact of the recent political change that is happening at the top level.

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1.3.2 Focus group discussion (FGD): Selected members from the village level meeting parti-

cipated in Focus Group Discussion (FGD). In all four FGDs were conducted in different villages of the selected dis-tricts. . Among the four focus groups two were of male be-neficiaries, one of women beneficiaries and one of women non beneficiaries.

Duration of the Focus group discussions was on an aver-age for one hour. The major questions for discussion were how far the schemes are useful for the villagers, what are the possible reasons for the low performance are and what are the possible solutions which can help to carry out more schemes and include more beneficiaries. In the FGD with male beneficiaries the discussion were around the hinder-ing factors for the scheme, why people are not participating and why people are migrating to other places for wage earning.

In the group the purpose of the research was explained in the beginning and it was promised that no name of the participant will be revealed. The whole process was recor-ded and some photographs were also taken. The re-searcher’s role was only to facilitate the process and build a suitable environment to participate in the FGD.

As per the plan the researcher wanted to understand the usefulness of asset created in the scheme by work site visits of some schemes. Researcher started the process to study the individual schemes and tried to find out its useful-ness to the community, who has participated in the particu-lar scheme and how the scheme has been selected. In the process it was observed that the people are reluctant in an-swering and hesitant to participate. Hence the process had to be stopped in between.

1.3.3 Using the secondary data: In the research process secondary data sources has

been extensively used. The data accessed through internet, data available in official web site and the related literature available on NREGA were used to compare the performance of the schemes.

Apart from the literature available on the net researcher visited A.N. Sinha Institute, Indian Institute of Technology, Asian Development Research Institute, Institute of Particip-

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atory Practices, Ministry of Rural Development and UNDP in Patna, the capital of the state to collect various reports and used them as secondary data.

In order to meet the objective of the paper the primary data has been collected from two districts of the state, Muz-affarpur and Gaya. These districts were selected as they are situated in different geographical region of the state and the program had started in both the districts in 1st phase. This was done primarily to capture data from the different socio economic conditions attributed due to difference in geographical locations to make the paper more representat-ives in terms of the whole state. The other reason for select-ing these two districts is to compare and contrast the situ-ation prevailing in the two broad divisions of the state north and south. Muzaffarpur has been selected as it is situated in the northern Gangetic plain which encounters flood and water logging and has high density of population whereas Gaya is situated in the south of Bihar and is drought prone. Both the districts have very contrasting features geograph-ically. Muzaffarpur is situated in very fertile alluvial Gan-getic plain, were as Gaya the rain fed farming is predomin-antly practiced.

To make the study more comprehensive the paper fol-lows the debates on the theories which are crucial in formu-lating the act in the country, its rationales and the specific socio-economic and political condition of the research loca-tion. The performance of the program in the research loca-tion (Bihar) has been compared with other parts of the country and analysed how existing social and political struc-ture contributes in implementation of the program.

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Chapter 2: The Concept and Rational

2.1 EGP and NREGAEmployment Guarantee Program at the moment is operat-ing in many parts of the world. In EGP, government provides the job opportunity with assurance of minimum wage but participant themselves decided whether to parti-cipate in the program or not. That is why EGP is self-target-ing program but this option of self-targeting is universal. In the program the wage rate and nature of work are such de-signed that non poor will find disincentive in this kind of arrangement and hence would exclude themselves from participating in the program (Sjoblom and Farrington 2008: 3) Like all other poverty alleviation programs, EGP has also focused towards reduction of poverty (Hirway 2006: 3). In India specifically the Employment Guarantee Act has been enacted in 2005, to enhance the livelihood security of the households in rural areas by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year. Members from every household whose adult members can volunteer to participate in unskilled manual work in the schemes under the act in their own locality which will fur-ther provide strong social safety net to rural poor by provid-ing employment.In the present context of India when Indian economy is growing rapidly it has become even more important. It is almost a decade now, in India economy is growing fast but poverty is also increasing in absolute number4. The gap between urban and rural is increasing very fast, as much of the growth are urban centric whereas rural areas are facing negative growth rate. Agriculture, which is the back bone of rural area is no longer enough remunerative and is facing the challenge of low productivity (Shah 2009).The act was enacted to speed up the growth of rural economy as the schemes under taken in the act has been designed to gener-ate employment through creation of productive assets which is required for poor to reduce vulnerability because vulnerability is often directly related to poverty which is closely related to ability of poor to cope up with shocks

4 Highest number of poor in the world is living in India. Data from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator

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(Hulme and Shepherd 2003: 409). In this regard, EGS aims to strengthen the asset base by creating community assets like all-weather road, drainage and sanitation for improving the quality of life and also helps in to providing the oppor-tunity which will be helpful for creating environment for economic growth in rural area.The program also aims at regenerating the ecology by pro-moting plantation in common and waste lands and taking up land and soil conservation programs under watershed development program, constructing water harvesting struc-tures etc. As livelihoods of the people in rural area are very closely associated with natural resources, these measures will have a highly positive impact on employment and pro-ductivity in the area. On the other side it will also help in generating the basic necessities of life like water supply, fuel wood and fodder for animals etc. The act provides the opportunity to demand for works, which will empower the rural poor through rights-based Law. It is also expected that the act will provide the oppor-tunity to unskilled wage worker to earn the minimum legal wage which will reduce distress migration. Guaranteed works will not only help them to reduce distress migration but also provide them the opportunity to have the stable life along with improving their access to human development opportunity. (Hirway, 2006: 6).In Indian context, “National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)’’ is a significant step towards the initiative to operationalize the right to work as per the directive prin-ciples of Indian constitution. It provides the opportunity to all those who are willing to participate and get minimum wage fixed by the state in the schemes undertaken known as ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes (NREGs)’. In the act the finance mobilization is the respons-ibility of the central Government but creating the opportun-ity of work lie with state government. In the scenario, right to work is not complete on its own as it involves the states to create the provision of work within its limited economic capacity (Papola, 2005: 594). The motive behind this act is to provide employment to those who are willing and de-mand for it. Unlike the other pervious schemes, NREGs is demand driven not supply driven. By enacting the act, gov-ernment for the first time stepped into providing decent work to all its citizens particularly in the rural area for the unskilled workers.NREGA has been enacted in July 2005 but it came into force with effect from February, 2006 in 200 districts ini-tially and later on from financial year 2008-09 extended to

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all the rural districts of India. It is being implemented through Panchyat, the local government at the grass root level. The planning and implementation is done by Pan-chayat, while the block and district level has the role of con-solidation, approval, monitoring and supervision. There are few activities that are allocated at district and intermediate level too.

NREGA like other Employment Guarantee programs in-cludes: i. Centrally funded jobs to anyone who is ready and willing to work.ii. These jobs claim to provide a minimum wage decided by local Government with decent working conditions and liv-ing.

Salient feature of the act are: 1) Adult members of a rural household, willing to do un-skilled manual work, may apply for registration in writing or orally to the local Gram Panchayat.

2. Employment will be given within 15 days of application for work, if it is not then daily unemployment allowance as per the Act, has to be paid. Liability of payment of unem-ployment allowance is of the States.

3. Work should be provided within 5 km radius of the vil-lage. In case work is provided beyond 5 km, extra wages of 10% are payable to meet additional transportation and liv-ing expenses.

4. Wages are to be paid according to piece rate or daily rate. Disbursement of wages has to be done on weekly basis and not beyond a fortnight in any case.

5. At least one-third beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested work under the scheme.

6. Work site facilities such as crèche, drinking water, shade have to be provided.

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7. Permissible works predominantly include water and soil conservation, afforestation and land development works.

2.2 NREGA and India

Six years since the act has been enacted by the parliament of India, NREGA has been able to provide employment to the beneficiaries at around 50 days in each year to each be-neficiary with little ups and down in each year as against government’s commitment of 100 days. The average itself indicates the gap between uptake and need of the program across the country. Though performance and participation data does not reveal any straight co-relationship between uptake and need between states.

Table 1: Performance of NREGA in the country on a yearly basis.

Year 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11Employment days providedto each bene-ficiaries

48 54 47

Source: www nrega.nic.in

Table 2: State wise performance of NREGA in 16 major states of India.

States 2008-09 (days)

2009-10 (days)

2010-11 (days)

Tripura 64 80 67Tamil Nadu 36 55 54Andhra Pra-desh

50 66 54

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Rajasthan 76 69 52Uttar Pra-desh

35 65 52

Karnataka 32 57 49Orissa 36 40 49Madhya Pra-desh

57 56 45

Gujarat 25 37 45Maharashtra 46 51 44Jharkhand 48 49 42Kerala 22 36 41Haryana 42 38 36Bihar 26 28 34West Bengal 26 45 31Assam 40 34 26

Source: www nrega.nic.in

Varying performance can be observed in different states. The data reflects that Bihar is among the few states which are ranked at the bottom of the table in terms performance of the scheme. Comparing with other poorer states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan etc. all are per-forming at par with the national average. Whereas among the affluent states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka after the initial hiccups the program has picked up and per-forming close to the national average. So far as the debate on performance of the program is con-cerned many study were conducted which explains different reasons which has affected performance. The studies con-ducted by IFPRI (2010: 10-20), Oxfam (2010: 10-17), Sharma (2007: 13), Mohan (2008: 1-5) and Bela Bhatia and Jean Dreze (2006: 3198-3111) suggests that lack of aware-ness of people of the program, lack of job cards to the bene-ficiaries, lack of proper planning at the implementation level, too much paper work in finalization and completion of the scheme, lack of skilled personnel at implementation level, lack of technical capability of implementing agencies, governance issues like absence of vigilance or monitoring committee for effective implementation, administrative laps like not registering demands of the beneficiaries, not pay-ing the unemployment allowance, administrative capabilit-ies and delay in payment of wage to the participants in the program, lack of basic work site facilities, rigid frame-work of program which allow only earthen work and follow 60:40

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ratio of wage and material in the schemes, quality of em-ployment, lack of innovation as per the requirement of the local needs, corruption and financial irregularities at all levels like state, district and in Panchayat level, socio cul-ture dimension and commitment of political leadership and lack of women representation are the main reasons for poor performance of the program.

Table 3: Status of women’s participation of women in 16 major states of India in 2010-11.

States Percentage participation of women

Kerala 90Tamil Nadu 83Rajasthan 68Andhra Pradesh 57Karnataka 46Maharashtra 46Gujarat 44Madhya Pradesh 44Tripura 39Orissa 39Haryana 36West Bengal 34Jharkhand 33Bihar 28Assam 27Uttar Pradesh 21National average 51

Source: www nrega.nic.in

The table depicts that participation of women in sixteen ma-jor states in 2010-11. The data says that participation of wo-men in southern states are high even though the program overall is not performing among the best in the country. On the contrary in the states like Tripura, Orissa, Madhya Pra-desh and Uttar Pradesh the overall performance of the pro-gram is better than the participation of women in the pro-gram in these states.

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All the literature explaining about the performance of NREGA in India appears to explain the proximate reason which affects the schemes undertaken in the act. But there are underling factors as well which are due to the social structures and various relationships that exist in the society from ages which has also significant influence on the above mentioned reasons which affects the performance of NREGA.

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Chapter 3: The Location

3.1 Bihar and NREGABihar is among the big states in India. Population wise it is third populated state in India. In the state more than 85% of population stays in rural area and the state is the least urbanized state of the country (Sharma 2005: 960). The state is primarily a rural economy and 75% of main workers depend on agriculture for their livelihoods (Banerjee 2009: 1) which contributes 24% of total GDP. Despite of huge proportion of population engaged in agriculture, productiv-ity wise it is almost half of that of national average and one fifth that of Punjab (Sharma 2005: 960). The state has high migration and 30.64 per cent of the rural households re-porting migration were at 44.1 per cent of the total house-holds being indebted (Sharma 2007: 38). The state has 41.4 per cent BPL population5 . Almost 43 per cent of the total households are landless and another 39 per cent has less than 2.5 acre of land. Land distribution is highly skewed with almost 66 per cent of house hold owning only 20% of the total cultivable land (Sharma, 2005: 961). This percent-age is gradually increasing as land is getting divided among the households. A survey conducted in 2005 reveals that while landless or those owning less than an acre of land in-creased from 67 per cent to 73 per cent, were as those own-ing more than 5 acres has also declined from 13 to 5.5 per cent (Sharma 2005: 960). On the whole it can be concluded that in Bihar quite a huge population depend on wage la-bour for sustenance and the percentage is increasing rap-idly.In the state 23.5 per cent of land belongs to big landlords who comprise less than 9 per cent of the total land owned population (Banerjee 2009: 4). Majority of these landlords do not practice agriculture on their own and are absentee land owners. Their lands are either tilled by share croppers or leased or rented to small and marginal farmers for agri-culture purpose. Reports say that nearly 25 per cent of cul-tivable area in Bihar is under tenancy which belongs to mostly big and medium level of landholders (Sharma 2007:

5 http://planningcommission.gov.in accessed on 20th March 2011.

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43). Since land is fixed and population is growing, all the categories of peasants, big, small and marginal, are losing land (Chakrabarty 2001: 1452). The number of households leasing in land has declined but the area of land leased has remained more or less the same. This is because tiny land-lords particularly those belonging to advance section of the society, migrate after leasing out their land. Due to the ini-tial prevalence of caste-class nexus, these sections in the society even today dominate among the big peasants and landlords and others among the poor and middle peasants. Bihar land distribution show very high degree of disparity compared to other part of country. According to the data released by Ministry of Agriculture in 2003-04, in Bihar 80.14% of land holders have less than 2.5 acre of land which is far higher than the national figure which is 61.58% and which is not enough to generate livelihoods for the ma-jority of the land holders. Furthermore the average size of the land holding is also less as compared to national aver-age which is 0.72 and 1 acre respectively (Banerjee 2009: 2-3). Adding to complexity 43% of the total households are either landless or only owns their house stead land out of which 76.6% do not have land at all (Sharma 2005: 967). On the other side productivity in agriculture is also low des-pite of the fact that half the state lies in the fertile Gangetic plain. These data has straight co-relation with the income earned by the people which reflects in the per capita earn-ing in Bihar which is less than half of the national average. The study suggests that the income distribution is also fairly unequal. The bottom 40 per cent of the households in rural Bihar the per capita income scale get about 16 per cent of total income, while about 25 per cent of the income accrues to the top 10 per cent of the households( Thakur et al 2001: 4661).As mentioned earlier, large amount of land belongs to big land lords and 25 per cent of land falls under the tenancy in the state. The data says that 36 present of rural households lease land for the agriculture purpose (Sharma 2005: 965). Hence tenancy becomes the dominant form of labour rela-tionship in the state. The nature of agreement of tenancy in the state between tenants and land owners informal and short term. As argued by Omotunde E.G. Johnson (1972: 260) in his paper on landlord- tenant system that though system is prevailing in many parts of the world and has con-tributed in increase in wealth by increasing the productiv-ity. In Bihar also this existing form of labour relationship has contributed in changes in terms of productivity but changes are slow and over all agriculture has failed to keep

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up with the pace with growth of population (Sharma 2005: 965). In the state the nature of agreement of tenancy actu-ally violates the provision of ‘Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885’ (Banerjee 2009: 16). No landowner wants to have such agreement written out on paper in form of formal contract. As a consequence, the tenants are unable to safeguard their legal rights. Further landowners make sure that tenants do not get to cultivate any plot of land continuously over a long time, to prevent the possibilities of legal transfer of land ownership in the name of tenants. Absence of legal and long term contract prevents to facilitate long term invest-ments on land. In Bihar due to the existing systems despite majority of population depend on agriculture, investment on the activity in terms of mechanization and on the land in terms of reclamation has been minimal so far and gap pro-ductivity has widened and as a result everyone engaged in agriculture has suffered.Decline of land availability and existing tenure system has made poor in the rural area more difficult to survive. Moreover low productivity has forced a significant propor-tion of poor, not only landless labourers but also the small and marginal farmers, to migrate and to look for the altern-ative livelihood source to elsewhere (Sharma 2005: 966). This in fact is not a new phenomenon in the state. So far as the nature of the migration is concerned, in Bihar both sea-sonal as well as circular migration trends are prevalent. Mi-gration is age old practice in Bihar and the labour market in the neighbouring industrial city like Kolkata, depends on migrant labour from Bihar and where nature of migration is circular ( Haan 2002: 115). Due to regularity of employ-ment it is still considered as attractive proposition among the migrant workers. Though there are studies which claim that in recent year due to several government programs which includes NREGA also, has helped in reducing migra-tion (MORD 2006: X ) where as other report say that num-ber of migrants have actually increased in absolute terms but rate has reduced in recent years ( DLR 2009-10: 84 ). Bihar is among the states which has highest migration. Lack of opportunity is the fundamental reason for the mi-gration in Bihar. Migration in Bihar cannot be understood by the prevailing factors like periodic floods and drought, law and order or caste operation. Migration in Bihar is con-sidered as structural. In spite of having higher economic growth rate in recent years due to continued increase in population and the backlog of unemployed among people in the state migration has increased however the rate of mi-gration has slowed down (DLR 2009-10: 85-89). Lack of di-

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versified livelihood options coupled with lack of industrializ-ation, poor infrastructure, lack of capital and raw material all has contributed significantly in migration. Various policies also promoted migration like Freight Equalisation Policy, 1948 for coal and iron ores which has denied the state any advantage of proximity to the mineral resources, bifurcation of state in 2000 which further contributed in slipping down industries in the state and the credit policy which denied entrepreneur to grow in the state (DLR 2009-10: 5-6). All these factors make the state a place of low op-portunity and supplier of labour for other states.Further more like many other states in India, politically Bi-har is always dominated by the strong caste dynamics in the society. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in all the activities that are carried out in the state. This always has been the reason for the struggle of the people belonging to different sections in the society (Chakrabarty 2001: 1453). In the history of Bihar several incidence of caste struggle can be noted. The caste system which is much enrooted in the society is often the fundamental reason for the social inequalities in the society. Time to time Bihar politics has seen the dominance of different castes at the centre of power. This caste factor till recently played the crucial role in deciding the people to be in the government. In the last assembly election held in the November 2010, first time people all across the state kept all the prevailing caste dy-namics aside and voted for development6. The result show that people accepted and appreciated the effort made by the present government for good governance and re-elected them.It is not that the state politics is always dominated by so-cially advanced section of the society known as upper castes. It is mainly because in the history of Bihar there are several incidents where one particular caste fought against the other. Unlike the other states such as Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh, which has the similar social structure like Bihar, in Bihar the peasants were not passive and not toler-ant of the acts of Zamindars that existed in the formal

6 In Bihar till recently the most important factor for choosing the candidate was the caste. Candidates who con-test election generally enjoys the support of the people be-long to same caste of their constituency which has changed in recent election and people voted those candidates who performed well in terms of representation. This shift of thinking on the part of people is considered as mark of the beginning of another political transformation in the state.

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structure introduced in colonial era (Das 1992: 36). The in-cidence of formation of ‘Kisan sabha’ in 1929, which actu-ally formed to oppose these existing Zamindars in the state and their dominance in terms of controlling the resources (Singh 1992: 21). Another significant movement was car-ried out by ‘Trivany Sangha’ formed in late 30’s which was formed by the sections of peasants who were relatively small in terms of resources and landholdings. More recently the Naxal movement started in 70’s and still going on, spearheaded by the oppressed and marginalized sections of the society. All these movements have challenged the exist-ing socio-political structures and resulted in bringing cer-tain section of people at the central power from time to time. This periodic changeover of power by particular sections with in the society has made the Bihar politically very vi-brant state. Till recently the state has observed the political rivalry due to the caste factor. Moreover, who so ever has come to the centre of power has taken the political de-cisions which inclined and favours with biasness for partic-ular sections. All these have resulted in higher accessibility of resources for particular section and the other as subor-dinate to them. All these have brought a significant change in attitude of the people which persists with all those who are in power in the society. One of the examples to under-stand the attitude is to observe the policeman’s attitude that how mercilessly he behaves and removes the rickshaw-puller from the lane to allow the car to pass through and salutes at passing cars. This attitude to dominate over the powerless and poor and saluting to the powerful and re-sourceful has become the characteristic of the behaviour of the people within the society and reflects all across the state. All these character make Bihar very different from the other states of the country and prevalence of strong structures pose challenge in implementation of different poverty alleviation program which has very little success in the past. So far as NREGs is concerned, in the state the program was started since 2006. During the pilot phase, out of 200 dis-tricts all across the country, 20 districts were selected from the state. Later in 2008 all the districts in the state were included in the program. In both the districts selected for the purpose of research, the program was started in the first phase. As per the data issued in the official web site the performance of the scheme in the state:

Table 4: Performance of NREGA in Bihar and India on a yearly basis

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Financial year 2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

Average Labour-days generated in the country

43 42 47 54 47

Average Labour-days generated in the State

35 22 26 28 34

Source: www nrega.nic.in

The table reflects the performance of the scheme in the state compared to the country in terms of Labour-days which shows that the state is performing constantly below the national average and state lies among last few states in the country.

Table 5: Performance of NREGA in Bihar as compared other similar poor states.

States Average Labour days generated2008-09 2009-10 2010-11

Rajasthan 76 69 52Madhya Pra-desh

57 56 45

Uttar Pra-desh

35 65 52

Bihar 26 28 34Source: www nrega.nic.in

The table depicts the performance of NREGA in comparison to the similar characteristic of states with Bihar like less urbanized, highly populated and major portion of popula-tion depending on agriculture for livelihoods. The data shows that the performance of the scheme is worst in Bihar in all the last three financial years.

Table 5: Status of women’s participation in NREGA in Bihar compared to other similar states in the financial year 2010-11.

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States Percentage of women participating in NREGA

Rajasthan 68Madhya Pra-desh

44

Uttar Pradesh 21Bihar 28

Source: www nrega.nic.in

The table depict that percentage of women participated in the scheme undertaken in the act compared with the states having similar socio-economic and cultural situation as Bi-har. The data says that the state is lagging behind all the states except Uttar Pradesh in the last financial year.

Table 6: Status of participation of job card holders in the schemes.

States Percentage of job card holders in the schemes

Rajasthan 54Madhya Pra-desh

35

Uttar Pradesh 59Bihar 17

Source: www nrega.nic.in

The table depicts the percentage participation of the job card holders in the scheme in which in Bihar lies at the bot-tom and more than 3/4th of the job card holders actually did not participate in the NREGs in year 2010-11 which is high in comparison to other states.The study conducted by Oxfam (2010: 10-17), Sharma (2007: 13), Samarthan- PACS (2008: 25-31) and DLR (2010: 44) regarding the performance of the program in the state reveals the same proximate reasons as mentioned above but it appears that there are underlying factors responsible which are due to socio-economic and political situation pre-vailing in the state since long time which is influencing the performance of the program in the state. Primary data for research has been collected from two dis-tricts of the state, Muzaffarpur and Gaya as mentioned earlier situated in different geographical location. Moreover both the districts has high percentage of landless, small and

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marginal farming population as well as these districts are also home to big land lords in Bihar who engage number of labourers in their field for agriculture. Three Panchayats from each district for study were selec-ted. The selections of Panchayats were done on the basis of land holdings by different section of the people in the area. In Muzaffarpur the Panchayat taken for the study are Pilkhi-Gajpati, Mirpur and Chaksen. All the Panchayat has significant percentage of scheduled-caste (SC) people. Though in all the Panchayats the percentage of SC popula-tion is almost similar but the land holding pattern is very different. In ‘Pilkhi-Gajpati’ more than 80 percentage of land belongs to big land lords who belongs to particular section of the society. Rest of the land is distributed among others. In the Panchayat the SC population hold very little land and majorly depend on wage labour. In ‘Mirpur’ Pan-chayat about 56 per cent of land belongs to big land holders and they are of different caste within the society. People belonging to SC community in the Panchayat also are en-gaged in agriculture by taking land on lease from big land holders and also involved in wage labour. In ‘Chaksen’ Pan-chayat the land is relatively well distributed among the vari-ous section of the society. In the Panchayat 30-35 percent-age of land comes under the big land holdings and rest are distributed among Muslims, SCs and others. In Gaya three Panchayats selected for research were Jika-tia, Bela and Kachori. In the district the size of Panchayats are relatively bigger in terms of land than from Muzaf-farpur. On an average three to four villages fall in each Pan-chayats which is unlike in Muzaffarpur where Panchayat comprises of one or two villages. In Gaya the ‘Jikatia’ Pan-chayat is being taken for study as it has significant pres-ence of big land holders and more than 50 per cent of land belongs to them. ‘Bela’ Panchayat is where people from all sections of the society live and numbers of big land hold-ings are less. In this Panchayat in sixties a significant amount of land were distributed under ‘Bhudan scheme’ to the land less people belonging to marginal communities. The third Panchayat selected is ‘Kachori’ where there are some big plots and rest are almost equally distributed among all sections of society in the Panchayat. All the land distribution data are taken from the Circle Officer’s office in the respective blocks in the districts.

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Chapter-4: Analysis of Field work

The field work was conducted to find out the socio-political structural reasons contributing to the performance of NREGA in the state. The literature also suggests that Bihar is characterized as highly divided society in terms of re-source allocation and is politically very vibrant unlike other states. These characteristics are often the reasons for sev-eral structures existing in the society from past days. Apart from implementation lapses, this societal structure which persists in Bihar, unlike other states has significant role in implementation processes and is affecting the program in the state. Taking these characters in to consideration the field work data has been analysed under three broad heads.

4.1 Socio- Economic situationLabour Relation and Changing Trend in Tenure Pat-ternIn the present situation of Bihar, where more than three quarter of land holders are small and marginal and hold land which is not enough to fulfil basic needs, little less than two quarter of total population are landless and mainly survive on agriculture labour and a huge proportion of land belonging to them who do not practice agriculture makes the state an ideal platform for NREGA. Big proportions of land which belong to big landholders do not practice agri-culture on their own and their land is rented out to small, marginal and landless farmers. The prevalent form of la-bour relation which exists in the state is that of tenancy (Sharma 2005: 965) in which small, marginal and landless farmers take land from big landholders on lease and prac-tice agriculture. In the earlier days in this form of labour relation, landowners supplied all the inputs and the tenants supplied the labour. In return they got the share from the agriculture output. But in recent years the trend has changed .Now a days renting is the most popular form of tenancy. This change is mainly due to the fact that majority of the big landholders have migrated to other places and diversified their livelihoods. Priority has shifted from agri-culture to elsewhere. One of the respondents a big land-holder in the area said that, ‘Now Zamindars has become Servicedars (government employee)’. Gradually they are

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trying to pull themselves out of the whole agricultural activ-ities as agriculture no longer is enough remunerative.The other factor which is responsible for change in the land tenure pattern is the rise in wages of the labour in rural la-bour market. Twenty four respondents who are beneficiar-ies of NREGA and also big land holders said that in recent years the labour wage rate in the area has gone up signific-antly. They all agree that growth of infrastructure industry and due to government schemes like NREGA, labour wage rate has risen by many folds. Studies say that the increase has occurred not just in terms of cash amounts but also in reduced expected outcomes from labourers (Jha et al 2009:459). The study also finds that NREGA has provided the small and landless labourer opportunity for employment which has increased their bargaining power. All the re-spondents interviewed agreed that general labour wage rate has risen by two and half folds in last three years and goes up to four times during peak agriculture season. One of the respondents, a big land holder in the area very an-grily reacted to the matter that ‘now it is becoming difficult to do agriculture by employing labour, it is better to rent the land and sit at home’. The impact of rise in labour wages has affected big landholders very adversely which has resulted in the change in tenure pattern. In the field work it was found that the nature of tenancy is informal and tenants get changed every year as narrated by the person who takes land on rent from land holders. In case of NREGA this informal tenancy has been the major hindering factor for the schemes to be undertaken on private lands which act permits. As per the act there is provisions to take up work for employment generation and create asset base in the private lands which belongs to Scheduled caste/Scheduled tribe (notified strata of the soci-ety) or small farmers(Amendment made in the act on 24th July 2009). But in the field visit not a single incident was found in six Panchayats surveyed in two districts. For de-manding work in the private land, it has to be approved by Gram Sabha and either ownership or long term lease agree-ment has to be proved in the Panchayat. As the nature of the contracts with the tenants is informal, the tenants are denied to take up the stated provision in the act. Thus the nature of tenancy prevailing in Bihar is reducing opportun-ity for employment generation and hindering in increasing the asset base in rural area which is one of the objectives of the act. In all this restricts the opportunity of work and con-tributes in low performance in terms of man days generated per beneficiaries in the state.

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Influence of land distribution on selection of NREGs

Regarding the type of work undertaken in NREGA, all the five Mukhias who were interviewed unanimously agreed that majorities of the work under taken in the act are re-stricted to construction of approach roads, connecting bridges and road side plantations which reports also sug-gests. They including POs interviewed also agreed that par-ticularly in North Bihar finding suitable site for scheme to generate opportunity for employment is a challenging task. In the northern part of the state due to high density of pop-ulation which is even higher than the average state density which 881 person per square kilometre as per 2001 census, common lands are less available. Adding to it there are lands lying in possession of the people who actually do not own the same. Many common lands are been encroached by the prosperous and powerful sections of society (Banerjee 2009: 16). In the field work it has been found that many plots are controlled by particular section of the society in the name of religion and social purposes. In six Panchayats of research area three instances of encroachment on reli-gious ground were found. Moreover incidences were also found where the common lands were used and controlled as private property by particular section of the community. These incidences are more frequent in those Panchayats where proportion of land belonging to particular section of the society is high. Probing into the matter the respondents said that these encroachments had happened years ago. In all such incidences people having large land holdings, very powerful and influential in the society were found involved. In general these lands are ideal to take up scheme under the act for employment generation but are not considered for annual work plan for the Panchayat for NREGs. As said by the respondents that people know about these encroach-ments of common land. When the question was raised to the Mukhias one of the Mukhia at first, pretended that he does not know about such case but when specific case was given, he responded that doing anything about these lands might disturb the peace of the region. All these means that the society is highly divided in terms of power and all want to maintain their status quo which is prevailing from long.

Land Holding Pattern and its Legal Follies

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Talking to one respondent who is a prominent researcher in the state and conducted a study for ‘Institute for Participat-ory Practices’ a research organization working in land is-sues, reveals that this illegal possessions of land by socially advanced caste has actually widened the gap of land hold-ings between socially advanced caste and others. More so there are incidences in many parts of the state where bene-ficiaries have failed to provide proof of ownership of the land gifted to them by ‘Bhoodan Yojna Committee’ donated by Landlords (Zamindars) in mid-fifties in recent years be-cause land donated by Zamindars are actually not owned by them. This recent incidence supports the fact that the il-legal encroachments are widespread in the state and is con-tinuing since years. During the field visit particularly in South Bihar it has been observed that these incidences has raised fear among the small landholders holding Bhoodan land about the legal status of their so called own land. In Gaya district in the field work all the respondents having ‘Bhoodan land’ expressed that in spite being under the noti-fied section (scheduled caste) with in the act, they prefer to work in the scheme but are not willing to take up the activ-ity in their own land for asset creation. All respondents agreed that they know about the provision in the act that the scheme can be used for creating private assets but are not very sure about the legalities of their own lands. They generally avoid taking up the provisions under NREGA in their own land. This whole issue of land ownership reduces the option for the scheme to take up in the private land and the schemes are restricted to only common land available in the area which is one of the main reasons for low perform-ance of NREGA in the state in terms of employment genera-tion. As mentioned earlier that in the state the features like land distribution pattern, huge gaps among the various classes and prevalence of large portion of landless population in the rural area are characteristics of ‘semi feudalism’ that exists in the society (Sharma 2005:963). Further the state is characterized by the relationship between a deeply frag-mented social structure and weak political capabilities of government institutions (Rouyer 1994: 63). In spite of hav-ing some richest farming areas and till recently (till 2000) the Chotanagpur plateau (now Jharkhand) which accounts huge mineral resources of the country was part of the state, the state is ranked at the bottom in all social indicators. The agrarian reforms failed miserably and government’s efforts to implement programs of poverty alleviation had very little

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success. Till recent years political killings to prove suprem-acy over others were wide spread.

“Semi Feudal” Attitude

In recent years in the changing political scenario all these features have reduced significantly but the semi feudal nature in the society still exists. This nature is very much related to highly unequal distribution of asset in the society and it also has correlation between the big land holders and particular section of the society. This phenomenon persists in Bihar since ages as in earlier days these feudal lords (Za-mindars) during the time of British Raj (before independ-ence in 1947) were given rights to collect rent from settlers (small land holders called a Raiyat) (Sharma 2005:961). The system was the part of the land revenue collection system administered by the British. This continued till Bihar had passed the law of ‘Abolition of Zamindari Act, 1947’ which came into effect in 1948. Further Bihar legislation passed the act of “Bihar Agriculture land Act, 1955” and “Bihar Land Reform Act, 1961” in which the provisions were made for ceiling of land ownership, land allocation and surplus land distribution (Jha 1997). These laws were further modi-fied from time to time to make land reforms more effective. Even after several efforts by the government, small and marginal farmers and agricultural labourers did not get much relief and land distribution structure has not changed much because of stiff resistance from land lords who are politically very powerful also (Das 1992: 33-37). There are two major reasons for this. Firstly the pace of implementa-tion of the laws are slow which gave ample opportunity to the big land owners to save their property and secondly many big land holders divided their land into smaller parts and complied the ceiling and registered in the name of their family members and loyal servants(Banerjee 2009: 2-4). On the whole the feudal attitude of the Zamindars in past days, turned as big landholders in recent days remain the same. These particular sections of society are still very influential, powerful and strong in terms of resources at the village levels. They often hinder in the work of NREGA. There are evidences in the field that these people either use their in-fluence not to carry out work in particular site which might generate several days of employment to many beneficiaries or put some restriction on the site. In BelaPanchayat in Gaya, a road construction work has not started because the land holder beside the site has not agreed to dump the soil in his land and finally Panchayat had to stop the scheme.

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The story does not end here. There are instances found in the field visit in which several complaints were lodged to the higher authorities to stop the work in many sites. Dur-ing the field visit one case occurred just after two days of start of work in Muzaffarpur district where the site was dug by machine by a very influential and powerful person in the region and who also own majority of the land in the Pan-chayat. Further the complaint has been lodged to higher officials against the functionaries of the Panchayat to stop the work. As in the act the use of machines to dig the soil is not permitted the administrative officials finally ordered to stop the work and ordered for an inquiry. In this regard Mukhia of that respective Panchayat has been called to Dis-trict office for several times. PO of the area in her interview said very clearly that these type of incidences are common and they became helpless when complains are lodged. She also expressed that these incidence mainly occurs due to the power relations that exists in the social structure. Ac-cording to one of the Mukhia interviewed say that ‘big people does not want to see the progress of the people of the area as they fear that they might loose respect if other progresses’. The Panchayat officials are often targeted to tighten control over Panchayat by so called big people (landlords) to remain at the centre of power. One of the Mukhia of the Panchayat in Gaya district clearly expressed that this has increased in recent time as Government is giv-ing more power and space to Panchayat to implement the schemes. These recent form of power struggle not only cre-ate disturbance in the area but also reduces the scope in identifying the site to carry on the program which contrib-utes in the low performance of the program in the state compared to other states.

Rise in Labour Wage Rate and its implication

There are other reasons also because of which NREGs is been targeted by particular section of the society. After en-actment of the act in 2005, minimum wage rate has been fixed by the state and this resulted in rise of agriculture wage rate in the rural area significantly. This has affected adversely to all the farmers who engages labour for agricul-ture, particularly big land holders who are dependent on labour and are finding difficult to carry on their traditional agriculture activity. One of the big farmers in the area ex-pressed in his interview that ‘now stomach of labour has become big and they demand more money for work’. Secondly it is becoming difficult to find people for domestic

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work who are also considered as their loyalists and which also contributes to their status and power in the society. The opportunity which has been provided by the act has in-creased the bargaining power and labourers started deny-ing the orders of land owners locally termed as ‘Malik’. Fear of losing respect, influence and power in the society by this section of society often facilitate to act unlawfully. During the field work one of the big land holders of the area openly expressed that ‘if the situation continues in the same manner for next few years Bihar will see serious con-sequence’. Analysing the incidence where big land holders hinder in the NREGs, a pattern can be observed. These incidences are more common in the place were land holding is spread out among the different sections of the society. One of the Mukhia of Gaya district among the Panchayats where land is distributed among all the sections of the societies, said that big people of early days are gradually loosing clout in the region because others are now becoming more aware of their rights and they do not listen to landlords anymore and they do not want the scheme to operate in the area. In con-trast the places where the concentration of land is more with the land lords (a particular section of the society) the Mukhias said that these powerful people does not influence in the NREGs because they know that schemes are going to help them as well. This pattern shows that impact of the program has affected the medium range landholder more adversely as compared to big landholders and resistance for the scheme is more from this category of the land holders. In the interviews and in the FGDs, conducted during field work with the beneficiaries almost all the respondents and the participants expressed that migrating to other place for work is preferred option than working in the NREGs. They all said that timely payment, regularity of work and less payment are the reason for it. These are also the reasons for which NREGs has failed to attract labour. Added to it in the field work many respondents expressed that they prefer to migrate to resist the feudalist attitude which is wide spread in the society. All most all the beneficiaries inter-viewed said that making regular request for work to Pan-chayat, for payments, running around post offices and banks and owner-subordinate behaviour in the work field, are some of the main factors of not choosing the scheme to work and prefer to migrate. In the field one respondent who is migrant labourer clearly expressed that ‘in outside we earn with respect whereas here we get humiliation for our own claims’. More over talking to one of the senior aca-

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demician of Bihar who claims that choosing migration is often resisting of feudalism and will continue till the caste dynamics exists in the society.

Limited Scope for Women Participants

All these factors mentioned makes situation even more diffi-cult for women to participate in the scheme. As per existing structure of the society women are responsible for house hold activities and looking after the children. It becomes difficult for them to strike a balance on both taking care of house hold activities as well as participating in the scheme along with running for their claims (payments). Moreover in Bihar migration is predominantly a male phenomenon ( Chakrabarty 2001: 1454) and being male counterpart away from home made it more difficult for them to do everything singlehandedly. In the FGD of women beneficiar-ies all the participants agreed that they generally particip-ate in the work when their husband is around as they also help in some domestic work. Otherwise they prefer to stay away from the schemes. On the whole the field study findings clearly show that strong structures which are there in the society since years due to high degree of disparity in land distribution and vari-ous dynamics relating to it like tenure system, encroach-ment of land and feudalistic behaviour of those having power in the society, NREGA has not been attractive for poor labourers in the state. All these compels poor wage worker to choose other options over NREGs. These are some of the reasons why women, poor, vulnerable and power-less labourers prefer to stay away from the scheme. All these cumulatively have resulted in low performance of NREGA in the state.

4.2. Socio-political situation

As mentioned earlier politically Bihar is a very vibrant state. The state has observed several changeover of power of cer-tain sections within the society. In recent time also the state is passing through a political transformation. This time the transformation is more radical as people in the state have decided to elect the top leadership on the basis which has never been considered before. Though the changes are happening at the state level, but in lower level like in village and panchayat level or in lower bureaucracy

30

or at elected panchayat functionaries’ levels, still the semi feudal behaviour is very much dominant. The political change happening in the apex level in the state has yet to reach at the lower level institutions which actually delivers the services to the people living in rural area and posing hindrance to the lower level institutions not to function in its full capacity which has happened several times before in the past (Rouyer 1994: 63).The program like NREGA is also caught up in the same trap and as a result it is performing with less success in the state as compared to other states.Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) which came into existence after 73rd amendment 1992 of constitution of India, which has the primary responsibility to implement of NREGs in the rural areas. Panchayats are political bodies and repres-entatives are elected in every five years by adult (above 18 years of age) franchise within the Panchayat boundary. The primary objectives of forming the PRIs are to encourage and ensure the bottom level planning and implementation. After the formation of PRIs many government schemes are designed and implemented through the PRI and NREGs is also one among them. To be more effective the operational guideline is prepared which explains the processes to be followed and also clearly distinguish the role of the differ-ent stake holders like community, government officials and Panchayat itself for the schemes. Status of PRI and its governance

As per the guidelines of NREGs, the scheme has to be final-ized by Gram-Sabha. In the field work conducted in the six Panchayats comprising of 19 villages, in none of the Pachayats it was found that the schemes were finalized in Gram-Sabha. All the 21 respondents interviewed com-plained that Gram-Sabhas are not held properly and they are only conducted to fulfil the process. Probing the matter into deep it was found that the Elected Panchayat repres-entatives, who are primarily responsible for calling the meetings, do not inform the people well in advance and put the blame on the people that they do not attend Gram-Sabha meetings. The process for calling the Gram-Sabha is to pass a resolution in ‘Panchayat Committee Meeting’ which has to be attended by at least ¾th of the elected members of the Panchayat. Further a notification is issued and the latter has to be displayed in the main places of every village and hamlet and an announcement has to be made. In the data collection process it was found that in

31

three Panchayats out of six, the information for Gram-Sabha meetings were made at very last hour. Beneficiaries in the interviews and in FGDs expressed clearly that this is done intentionally by the Panchayat members, so that people do not participate and this gives the freedom to the elected members of Panchayat to finalize the scheme as per their wish. While in the interviews with the Mukhiyas, all expressed that it is the people’s responsibility to know about the meeting not theirs to inform. This practice clearly shows how the processes are bypassed and the schemes are used by the elected members of the Panchayat as per as their own choice. As reported by Sharma (2007:43), “the selection of schemes has not been always the most appro-priate one. One reason for this is often the clash of interests among the PRI representatives. It has been observed that major consideration in selection of schemes has been the immediate political interests of the PRI representatives. They push for those schemes first which would benefit their electorate first. Sometimes immediate and the most urgent requirement of the locality and area are ignored to benefit certain interest.” In the field work more than half of the be-neficiaries interviewed came out with the options about the possible sites where the schemes could be executed but these have not been included as part of the annual plan which reduces the opportunity for the worker to participate in the schemes and results in low performance in terms of employment generation.

Pseudo Democracy in PRIs

Lack of opportunity for site selection is heard as common explanation for low performance of the NREGA in the area as said by all the five Mukhias interviewed. Whereas the annual plans are prepared often without taking peoples’ views which is non-adherence of institutional processes suggested in the guidelines of NREGs. All this indicates the attitude and motives of the elected Panchayat representat-ives to use the scheme to exercise their assigned power over the community to differentiate them from rest of the population. In the FGD conducted with the beneficiaries one beneficiary expressed that, ‘after being elected as Mukhia, Mukhiaji has become a big man and he no longer listens to us’. This exercising of power by Panchayat lead-ers for their own vested motive, similar to the political scen-ario that exists in the state since years, has resulted in loss of the possible opportunities present in the area which can generate several more man days of employment and can

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contribute more in terms of performance of the program in the state. Further to control the work and the beneficiaries, Pan-chayat functionaries promote small contractors who super-vise the work although the act does not permit for employ-ing contractors7 . While designing the act this provision was seriously considered and finally the ‘contractor system’ has been not agreed in the act. This is mainly to break the nexus between politicians and administrative officials to save beneficiaries from exploitation. It has been also thought that this provision will give greater freedom to the Panchayat bodies to take up the activities for the benefit of the people in the area at large and would help the newly formed Panchayat to emerge as strong institution. But in practice, in Bihar it is working very differently. In the field work it has been found that in all the Panchayats the work under the act are being undertaken by contractors. The Panchayat functionaries and administrative staffs in the name of ‘Nrega Mate’ (explain in footnote) allocate the schemes to the small contractors who are generally loyal to Mukhias to have greater control over the schemes and provide benefits to those who support them in the elections. The implication of this existing practice are, first not all wil-ful beneficiaries get employment as selection of the benefi-ciaries are at the discretion of the contractors and secondly the beneficiaries are denied the minimum wage fixed by the state and some portions of the wage of the participants, goes in the pockets of the Panchayat functionaries and the administrative officials. Moreover this existing practice fol-lowed in the state in NREGs, violates the basic principles of the act, formulated by Government of India in 2005. On one hand it has proved wrong to the commitment of government to enhance livelihood security to the households in rural areas by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to provide strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups by providing em-ployment. On the other hand it has denied people the op-portunity to demand for works which would have been thought of to empower the rural poor through rights-based law. It also denies the unskilled wage worker to earn the minimum legal wage fixed by the Government and by and large is responsible in not helping in reducing distress mi-gration which reports also suggests. On the whole the pre-

7 As per the NREGA guideline 15th point which says that the scheme undertaken will follow 60:40 wages and mate-rial ratio and no contractors and machinery is allowed in the scheme.

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vailing practice in NREGs in the field has failed to replace the exploitative contractor system which was responsible for the failure of the poverty alleviation schemes in the past; the same has been repeated in NREGs as well. All the 21 beneficiaries interviewed in the field consider NREGs same as other scheme and the scheme has also failed to at-tract labourers to participate in it.Reports on NREGA functioning suggest that the selection of schemes at the Gram Panchayat is more or less smooth. It also says that it is because of the motivated interests of the Panchayat functionaries. Reports on NREGA suggests that in majority of the cases, schemes at the Panchayat level are been selected by the Mukhia himself without the meeting of Gram-Sabha and forwarded to the PanchayatSamiti as scheme selected by the Gram Sabha. Moreover they push for those schemes first which would benefit their electorate. Sometimes immediate and the most urgent requirement of the locality and area are ignored to benefit certain in-terests. (Sharma 2007: 44). During primary data collection it was evident from the interviews that the program is being used as a political machine by the elected Panchayat rep-resentatives. Fifteen beneficiaries interviewed in the field work had agreed to it. More over among the six Panchayats surveyed, in four Panchayats it was found that only those schemes get finalised which affects the people who has sup-ported the Mukhia in the election or belongs to same caste as said by the participants interviewed. One of the Muslim women in ChaksenPanchayat of Muzaffarpur district clearly expressed in the FGD that, ‘in her hamlet Mukhia do not open the NREGA scheme as they all are Muslim and the Mukhia is non-Muslim’. There were also incidences found in the field where the schemes are not even considered after several requests because the beneficiaries belong to other social group. While field work in BelaPanchayat in Gaya dis-trict it was found that approach road of one hamlet resided by particular community (same that of Mukhia) was built twice under the scheme but in-spite of several request made for the approach road of adjoining hamlet resided by other community has not yet been started. The person who has been interviewed in the same village very dejectedly said that ‘there is no one to look after them in the Pan-chayat’. There are other examples too of same nature in other Panchayat as well. All these mean the failure in the existing institution to deliver the objective of the act for which it has been formulated. Moreover the leaders of the institution are making the institution discriminatory on the basis of age old social structure which reiterates the fact

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that the process of political transformation in the state hap-pening at the state level has yet to show its impact in the lower level. This existing practice is not only hindering in reducing exploitation of the wage labourers but also hinder-ing in taking up all the possible opportunity to generate em-ployment to the wilful beneficiaries and provide safety net for the poor people living in rural area. Elite capture in the scheme

In the state all the job card holders in the area actually do not participate in the schemes. Particularly people belong-ing to socially advanced community keep themselves away from the schemes in terms of participation despite having job card. This is one of the reasons for high ratio among the job card holder and actual participant in the schemes all across the state said by the Mukhias and POs interviewed in the area. But those hamlets or villages where they stay are always preferred for the scheme8 . Probing into the matter with the Panchyat functionaries in one of the Panchayat in South Bihar, Mukhia clearly came out that these people are influential and they need to be kept happy so that they do not disturb. Another reason that came out is the work needs to be taken up in those hamlets because only in their ham-let, places of common interests like Temples, Mosques, schools, cremation place etc. are situated. Further, Mukhias are also inclined to take up those works because they have huge visibility effect as they are used by every-body. One of the Mukhias of a Panchayat in Gaya district, who do not belong to socially advanced section of the soci-ety, said that it was his good work that he did in his last tenure that he got re-elected. He is very proud to say that all the religious and important places in his Panchayat, are well connected by road which are built under NREGs. Al-though all the socially important places are mostly confined in two hamlets in the Panchayat and in both people from socially advanced section stay. During the field visit the re-searcher tried to map the places of social importance in the Panchayat to triangulate the claim of the Mukhia and found that only one place of social importance which is left out of approach road is the burning place of ‘Musahar’ community

8 In Bihar in the villages the caste wise settlement is very distinct. Generally the settlements are divided in terms of hamlets resided by particular caste. In the big villages the villages are divided in different parts locally termed as ‘Tola’ and each tola is resided by different caste of people.

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considered one of the most oppressed section of society. Mukhia explains that this is mainly due to land problem and people are not willing to give land for construction of road. On the whole the age old socio-political structure, in which favours are made to particular sections and denied to other, are still persisting as same which is indicative of fail-ure of the existing institutions. All these factors hinders in taking up the activities which can be helpful for the larger mass and also has the potential to generate several more days of employment to beneficiaries of the schemes and contributes in the performance of NREGA in the state. All these factors restate the claim of difference in politics at the state level and the Panchayat level. At the ground level the power relations and its effect on the decision making is very different than in the state level where people are keep-ing these factor aside while choosing the leadership in the state. In India due to constitutional provisions in many Pan-chayats, the people from marginalized groups and women are getting elected in the leadership positions but due to prevalence of strong structures in the society, they are com-pelled to act according to the people who actually hold power and resources in the village level which has been dis-criminatory in nature and has divided the society. These power relations in the village level often pose hindrance in the functions of the institution and ultimately the quality of service delivery suffers. The same is happening in NREGA which results in lower uptake of the scheme due to poor de-livery by these institutions in the state. Among five Mukhias interviewed in the field work two of them were women. But in the field work no difference has been observed in terms of functioning of the Panchayat. In the interviews like their male counterpart they also ex-pressed same so far as women participation in the scheme is concerned. No special efforts are made to encourage wo-men to participate in the program. Though one of them ex-pressed that in the plantation work which is common in the northern part of the state, women are preferred over men as the work is less strenuous. But on the whole all the Mukhias agreed that participation of women has increased marginally over the years as awareness among the women about the program has increased.

Politics in the selection of the schemes

NREGA is not only used to consolidate votes by the Pan-chayat functionaries but it is also being used to expand the

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followers. In one of the Panchayat in Muzaffarpur district, Mukhia used NREGs to expand her followers. In recent Pan-chayat election held in March 2011 she has been re-elected with the highest margin in the district. She says in her in-terview that in the previous election a particular section has not supported her but the same section in this election has supported her after seeing her work. In the particular hamlets where this particular section of people resides, in last tenure she as Mukhia has taken up the task of con-structing the approach road, road side plantation and allot-ted the supervision of the plants to the beneficiaries of the same section. She claims that her attitude towards ‘devel-opment’ has not only benefited to get her re-elected but also it was easy to find new opportunity for the schemes. Though she expresses the concern for shrinking opportun-ity of work as in her Panchayat as more than 70 percent of land belongs to few rich families. Here,the situation is very similar to the changing political scenario of the state politics which reflected in November 2010 assembly election where people selected the leader of state government in totally new basis of ‘Governance’ keep-ing the prevailing caste dynamics aside . But this process of political transformation at the top level is not reflected in the lower level during the process of data collection. Though in one panchayat out of six surveyed has shown the changing trend but in all other areas the data says that NREGA is used to help particular section. This reflects the dynamic political change which the state is passing through. The changes happening at top and bottom level is contradictory in the state. All the Mukhias interviewed ex-press that things are changing but changing slowly all throughout the state. They all say that now electorates are choosing Mukhias on the basis of their ability and perform-ance in delivering but local level caste dynamics and power relations also plays crucial role. Moreover in the recent years number of schemes has increased which benefitted all the sections of the area though in varied degree. Some em-inent academicians in the state also do not agree that the change happening at the state level is the true reflection of total political transformation but says the process is on and gradually percolating down. Still delivery of the benefits through government institution is highly questionable. Though they acknowledge that reason for the present change in the socio-political situation is actually a result of higher utilization of the central funds and increased num-ber of schemes in which NREGs is also one. This has forced

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people to look beyond the existing social structure for their own betterment.

4.3. Design of the program

After the act was enacted by the Parliament of India in 2005 the operational guideline was prepared for the pur-pose of effective implementation. Though different state governments have been given some freedom to adjust the schemes depending upon the local situation but by and large the provisions under the schemes are made fixed for all the states. Some states had also adjusted the provision on the basis of their local requirements from time to time. Like in Kerala more emphasis is given in NREGs to employ more labour and those schemes are preferred which are more labour consuming whereas in Bihar under NREGA, creating the rural infrastructure following 60:40 ratio of labour and material are taken as priority.

Huge gap in Job card holders and the ratio of their participation in the program

Despite low level of literacy rate in the rural areas in Bihar, in the field work it has been observed that people are aware about NREGA. However, the level of awareness was not uniform all across as reports also suggests. People are aware about the wage rate, about the distance of the work and the role of PRI in the scheme. But very few are aware about the work site facility (Sharma 2009: 31-32). Having job card is common except in one hamlet where re-spondents raised concerns about the issuing of the job card. In fact government officials raised concern about the fact that number of job card issued are three to four times more than that of the people actually participating in the pro-gram. The official web site of the program also suggests the same. In the rural Bihar even the people belonging to so-cially advanced section and resourceful also have job cards though they do not participate in the schemes undertaken in the act. They mostly registered themselves under the im-pression that they would be entitled to get unemployment allowance once they have the job card. During the field work both the POs interviewed asserted the fact that it pre-vails across the state for which the state has been often cri-

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ticized for offering employment to only 17 per cent of total job card in the scheme and this has been viewed as low per-formance of the scheme in the state. In the field work it has been found that getting job card is not difficult process. Many times it is prepared on the spot. It is very non-discriminatory process. Both the POs inter-viewed in the field work has categorically said that all the RojgarSawak9 have been instructed to issue job card on the spot if any beneficiary does not have job card and wants to participate in the scheme. This practice is followed all across as per as government direction to include as many beneficiaries possible under the act. This has resulted in issuing duplicate job cards to many beneficiaries. More over as mentioned earlier that despite having job-card; people belonging to socially advanced sections do not parti-cipate in the program. All these factors together contrib-uted in issuing of job card to large number of participant who actually does not participate in the program. Recently government has launched a massive drive to rectify the matter and the process of scrutiny is going on across the state for finding the double issued job-cards and those who in spite of having job card do not participate in the pro-gram. Further in the field work many people in hamlet level meet-ing expressed that despite having job card they do not want to participate in the program as program offers very limited scope of work, delays in payment and is very strict in nature. Moreover in FGD that due to existing social struc-ture it is considered as inferior for the people belonging to socially advanced section to work as manual labourer in other places in the village along with the other section of people. It affects their status and respect within the society. One participant in the FGD said that ‘if they work in the scheme with them they will lose their respect’. Hence non-participation in the scheme by majority of people can be attributed to both the program design and also to the social structure that exists in the society.

Non labour friendly payment norms in the scheme

In Bihar, during the field work it was found that no one de-mands for work which is the core principle of the act. Among six Panchayat surveyed only in two places the Mukhia and the government official acknowledged that

9 Deputed from Government to all the Panchayat to as-sist Mukhia in NREGs

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there are incidence of demands by the beneficiaries but they are very few in number. In fact one of the POs of the surveyed block said that the people who a demand for work has always come with a hidden motive to claim unemploy-ment allowance which is the provision in the act. She fur-ther stressed that these are the people who always disturb the program. An interesting reason came out in the field work is that the rules in the act are hindering the process of demand in the scheme. All the Mukhias and the officials in-terviewed in the field work agreed that for the schemes un-dertaken in the program, lot depends upon the motivation of the respective Mukhias. As the act does not permit daily payment to the labourers participating in the schemes, this is also an important reason for poor labourers not choosing the scheme. In the field work, in all the Panchayats, it has been found that the payments of the labourers are delayed. Not in any case the payment was made earlier than fifteen days. In some cases the payments were delayed for over a year. Due to the nature of payment in the program, the pro-gram has become less attractive for the labourers. More over the labourers prefer to work in the fields nearby or to go to nearby town or cities as casual labourer in spite of low wage because they get the wages there on daily basis. This reason has made NREGs very difficult for the Mukhias and the administrative officials to arrange labour for the scheme. Four out of six Mukhias agreed that they arrange some advances to start the work and also arrange the pay-ment if not daily then once in two or three days. The ad-vance given to the labourers are then claimed by the Mukhias or others who supervise, at the time of scheduled payment for the scheme. One Mukhia in his interview very angrily reacted to the matter that ‘the nature of the scheme is such that to carry on the scheme we need to do lot of massaging to the labourers’. This practice is very common in all across the state as stated by the Mukhias.This existing practice has many implications which can be clearly observed in the field. Firstly it restricts the willing beneficiaries not to demand the work which violates one of the core principal of the act. Generally Mukhias refuse to pay advances or the periodic payments to the participant, if the participant demands for work. The demand made by participant is considered to be an acceptance from the par-ticipant to agree to the terms and condition of payment of the program which is in practice and no extra favour hence can be demanded. This has been pointed out by one of the Mukhias and a PO and was also expressed by some of the beneficiaries. Secondly it promotes the contractor system in

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NREGs which is exploitative and not permitted in the act. In the field work it has been found that Mukhia always does not initiate the works but often the works are delegated to the petty contractors in the name of ‘Nrega Mate’ as ex-plained earlier. Thirdly and most importantly it denies the minimum wage to the participants that are fixed by the state government. The workers at the end do not realize the same amounts that government has fixed for the state. Fi-nal payment is done to the participants after keeping some shares by the contractors or Mates. These are some of the serious design and implementation lapses which have com-pelled to follow the age old form which is exploitative which contributes to the non-participation in the program and hence results in poor implementation of the program.

Interference of the government officials in the pro-gram

Delay in payment is one of the major reasons for NREGA not to be performing as expected. It has been mentioned earlier that during the field work no scheme was found where the payment was done on time. The implication of delayed payment is affecting the overall goal of the act. There are several reasons for delay in payment. One of the major reasons is irregular fund flow from the district to Panchayat. All the Mukhias interviewed, categorically says that flow of fund is very irregular. Moreover the huge paper work also delays the process. Corruption in the administrat-ive system is wide spread. Ultimately all these at the end adversely affect the participants who work in the scheme. Recently the state government has started disbursing funds electronically in some Panchayats but result is yet to be seen. On the issue all the Mukhias explain that in the recent changing political scenario the bureaucrats has become more dominant in the system and corruption in the govern-ment system has actually increased. In addition to this the periodic instruction issued from the district administration about the priority of work to be taken also hinders the pace of the work. Recently a District Level Panchayat meeting of all the concerning Mukhias of the all the Panchayat was conducted by Deputy Development Commissioner (DDC) in Muzaffarpur . In the meeting all the Mukhias were instruc-ted to take up only earthen work with very little material component. This measure was taken to provide job to more beneficiaries as in the region the initial monsoon was er-ratic. This instruction made all the Mukhiyas to either stop or slow down the on-going work on roads and small bridges

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and diverted focus on searching more labour intensive work sites. On the whole the pace of the schemes slowed down in the area and by the time heavy monsoon arrived which forced to stop most of the work. These instructions from the administration from time to time are often responsible for the disruption in the on-going schemes. These unfinished schemes are also the reason for delayed payment as the measurement can only be done after the report from the vigilance committee of the concerned village is submitted and they are reluctant to give reports on unfinished schemes. NREGA is an act and hence government officials also keep very close eye on it. In many cases the government officials take action soon after the complaint has been lodged. As per as the officials interviewed during the field work they accept that these complain are often baseless and politic-ally motivated but once they are lodged official is left with no option other than stopping the work and is followed by order of investigation. All these interferences in imple-mentation have increased in recent years as per the Mukhias who were interviewed. These acts are actually the reflection of the on-going tussle of power between the elec-ted representatives and the bureaucracy. It is not only NREGA which is getting affected but other schemes are also affected by this. One of the Mukhia during the field work showed a letter issued by one Block Development Of-ficer (Lowest executive in administrative structure) in-structing all the Mukhia to work as his helping hand in de-velopmental works. This is one of the extreme examples of exerting power by bureaucracy over elected representat-ives in democratic system. These struggles are some of the reasons of the slow progress of the government schemes and NREGA is also one among them. The strict norms and repeated interference by the govern-ment officials, makes difficult to explore the new opportun-ities for the schemes. NREGs is now being implemented for last six years and it is becoming harder to generate the op-portunities in available common lands. Further the strict and inflexible rules in the act are adding to the complexity which is leading to low performance of the program in the state. During the field visit it has been found that the activ-ity like plantation in common land which generates employ-ment for many labour days and also suits to the basic prin-ciple of the act, is not taken in the districts of South Bihar this year. The reason for this is, in the previous year lots of complaints were lodged for this activity. Last year in the region which is highly drought prone, the mortality rate of

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the saplings planted was high. As the act does not permit for refilling of saplings in the gaps, many complains were lodged all across the districts in South Bihar and many of the officials were charged. This year POs of all the districts of Bihar as stated by both the POs interviewed are reluctant to take up the activity in their region. This reflects the limit-ation in the design of the program which even hinders in taking up of the activity permitted in the law and has the potential to generate several labour man days also get af-fected.. More over the activities like plantation are less la-bour strenuous and suits to women, old and disabled people. In the state it has been seen that participation of these section of people is high as compared to others as seen in the past years. Not taking up these activities re-stricts them specially women in participating in the scheme. In the fieldwork it has been observed that women particip-ate more in the plantation work in comparison to other work. All the three Mukhias interviewed in Muzaffarpur ac-knowledges that women’s participation rate is more than 50 percent in plantation work. On the whole design of the pro-gram, the rule and the way these rules are administered, itself is imposing challenges to include more beneficiaries in the program specially women which is reflecting on the performance of the program in the state.In NREGA, to prevent labour from exploitations and to en-sure minimum wage, several measure are taken in the act. As per the act payment of the worker is done through the personal account either in post offices or banks. No direct payment is allowed in the schemes. But in reality it is work-ing oppositely. The institutional payment system not only delays the payment but also increases the corruption. In the field work it has been found that these post offices in the rural areas are small and often do not have enough cash for payments. In practice they collect the signed withdrawal slip from the beneficiaries in advance and then these post offices collect cash from the bigger branches and pay to the respected beneficiaries. All these processes take three to four days and contribute in further delay in payment to the beneficiaries. This practice not only delays the payment but also violates the banking norm. During data collection more than half of the beneficiaries complained that post masters also demand money from them. In the field work when it was raised to Mukhias and administrative officials, it was found that this is a very common practice and almost all are aware of this but show their helplessness as practice is re-commended in the operational guideline. Four out of six Mukhias suggested that hand to hand cash payment to the

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laboures will make the program more attractive and will help in including more participation but law does not per-mit to do so.

Limited Shelf of work

It has been also found that that the self of work prescribed in the frame work of NREGA, is itself limiting and posing challenges for implementation. The act permits only earthen work and the payments are done as per the pre-scribed amount of work (one Labour Day is equivalent of digging 100 cubic feet of soil). This is quite a strenuous job. The nature of job makes the scheme less attractive espe-cially for weak, disabled and women to participate in the scheme. All the respondents interviewed during the field work acknowledge that meeting the fulfilment of the scheme is very difficult particularly in the lean season be-cause of adverse weather condition and soil is also dry and hard. Many beneficiaries said that the nature of work com-pels them to think for other options. In the focused group discussion conducted with the women beneficiaries, they clearly expressed that the nature of work is very hard and the program needs to provide other option for them. Out of six participants in FGD three said that they have fell sick after participating in the schemes in summer and hence stopped going to participate in NREGs. More over the job site facilities are also not followed properly as prescribed in the act. All these factors in addition to irregular availability of work make NREGA less attractive to both women and men. So far as the infrastructure creation is concerned the ratio of 60:40 in terms of labour verses material is also posing as limiting factor. This ratio can be maintained for creating new infrastructure but not sufficient for renovating the old one. Often in the rural areas these old infrastructures are very important but cannot be taken up under the scheme due to restriction in the act as said by the Mukhias.Other factor which contributes in lack of performance of the program is the lack of technical support from the ad-ministration and also the capacity of the Panchayat func-tionaries. As observed in the field the Panchayat represent-ative’s lacks capacities in planning, site selection, and measurement of work and technical knowhow. There is very little effort in government’s part to build the capacities of the Panchayat functionaries as it has happened in other earlier poverty alleviation programs. Particularly for tech-

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nical matters they are dependent on the government official which further delays the process. More over the govern-ment officials generally gives less priority to the program as it has very strict rules and regulation. They are much keen in supporting other programs run parallel in the area. All this delay the process for closing the schemes under NREGA and delays the payments to the workers participat-ing in the scheme. These design issues make the program less attractive and labours are reluctant to participate in the program which is contributing in low up take of the pro-gram in the state.

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Chapter 5: Findings and Conclusion

In spite being an ideal condition in the State of Bihar, NREGA appears to have been not performing well in the state. The performance of NREGA in the state is a classic example of low uptake of the schemes vis-à-vis high need of employment for the people in the area. Government of India enacted the act in 2005 to boost the rural economy by providing employment in order to create productive asset base in the rural areas. The program is designed to provide economic safety net to the rural poor. Bihar being one of the least urbanized, having huge portion of population de-pendent on agriculture, high rate of migration particularly from rural area, huge BPL population and high percentage of population with very less resource base who mostly de-pend on wage labour, the scheme under the act should have performed in much better way than what it is doing presently in terms of employment generation, women’s par-ticipation and ratio of job card holder participating in the program. Comparing with the other states, Bihar has generated low employment opportunities to the beneficiaries of the pro-gram. Nationwide the data says that the state has per-formed poorly as compared to the affluent states as well as the poor states. As compared to the states having similar socio cultural and economic situations as Bihar, the pro-gram has performed far behind in all respects.As in many other states, caste plays a crucial role in de-cision making. But in Bihar this factor not only play the dominant role but also is reflected in the attitude of the people of the state. On the other side being politically very vibrant the state has observed several changeovers by par-ticular sections from time to time at the power centre and who so ever has been at the centre of power has exerted effort to provide benefits only to the section he/she repres-ents. Due to this the state time to time has seen particular sections as dominant and others as subordinate in the state politics. This has become a prototype of power structure unlike the other states and resulted in attitudinal change amongst the people of all sections. Power struggle no longer is restricted to different sections but it has become

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the game of the individuals. This individual character has followed the same pattern of supporting his/ her kin and oppressing other for execution of the government pro-grams. This pattern was followed even when the so called oppressed section or women were given leadership role and power. This rigid compartmentalised structure that exists in the society is playing a crucial role in non-performance of NREGA which is meant to provide economic safety net to rural poor.Clash for power is a common phenomenon in the society. It is not only restricted to different sections within the society but it also reflected in the bureaucracy of the state and also amongst the elected representative. Though the state in re-cent years is passing through a dynamic political transform-ation and the synergy and coordination can be seen at the top level by which Bihar in recent years is doing quite well among all the other states in India, but still the process has yet to impact at the lower level. In the field work the tussle for power among the district and block level government officials and elected representative was apparent. It has been found that lack of coordination and synergy between the two in execution of the program is causing gaps in im-plementation which is resulting in low participation of the people in the program in the state.Furthermore the power relation at the village level which has straight correlation with resourceful people in the area has significant influence in decision making and functioning of the institutions responsible for implementation of pro-grams. In the field work the effort of balancing of power re-lations by the elected representatives at the lower level to maintain peace as well as functioning of the program is clearly evident. This divided effort by the primary imple-menters seemed to have affected in the implementation of the program. More over this village level power relation is structural in nature and can be termed as part of old historical legacy and weak political will of earlier leadership. In spite the state being among the first few to adopt abolition of Zamin-dary system, the state has miserably failed in doing so. The strong will of holding of resources and power by the people has resulted in the state to fail to enforce the laws many times in the past for distribution of its resources. It has af-fected the state in two ways. Firstly the state unlike the other states remains highly divided in terms of access to the resources which resulted in large proportion of the popula-tion having very little access to resources and are depend-ent on the resources owned by others. Secondly it has di-

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vided state among two distinct classes in which one always dominates over other. These two factors not only restricts opportunities of employment generation but also employ-ment are to be generated as per as the wish of dominant class. Further significant impact of NREGA on rural labour market so far, the program is facing stiff resistance for re-source owner class particularly the medium term land hold-ers as it has affected them very adversely who are in large number in the state. This has made the program very un-popular among the landholders and the program is being often targeted for failure. In recent years the state is passing through political trans-formation and political thinking and political priorities has changed at the top. But in the field work it has been found that the change is yet to reach at the lower level. The insti-tutions working at the lower level are still in trap of old thinking process. They are grappled with vested motives and local level power structures. One of the examples in this regard is in spite of having job card majority of people do not participate in the program because job cards were made either to get compassion allowance without particip-ating in the scheme as favour from the leadership or too much hassle to claim for their own entitlements. Both reas-ons of non-participation figure out the capacity of the insti-tution to deliver services in non-discriminatory manner which has been facilitated by the political environment in the past which still exists. In case of NREGA implementa-tion gap in functioning of the Panchayat has come out as major hindering factor. Capacity building of the village level leadership and empowering people for their rights presently are the major role to be carried out by the gov-ernment. Once these primary institutions become capable to operate in full capacity and people start to demand from the bottom for their own entitlements, then only the changes happening at the top level can be justified as the true reflection of the state.Finally design of the program in the act itself has the inher-ent tendency to exclude people from the program rather than including them. The inflexible design and strict rules and norms which often do not suit to local situations tend to exclude participants from the program particularly women. India being highly diverse country, one frame cannot be ad-apted for all across the country and produce results. The shelf of work need to be more diversified to make more at-tractive and conducive for the weaker sections of the soci-ety including women. To improve the situation serious thinking is required in design which will facilitate innova-

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tion and creativity and also suit the local condition so that the program include more people and help in boosting the rural economy by providing employment by increasing asset base in rural area and provide safety net to the poor rural population.On the whole despite of noble motive of EGP, implementa-tion of NREGA cannot be explained by only analysing the match between objectives of the program and need of the people. Bihar has been a classic example where in spite of match between objective and need the uptake is low. In the divided societies like in Bihar the challenge of designing suitable program is even more. Greater consideration of social hierarchies, attitude of the people, the power rela-tions existing in the society and the effect of political envir-onment need to be taken care off. These facets are very much evident in case of NREGA which is one of the world’s biggest and very ambitious programs, still struggling to function in full capacity after six years of inception and it is challenged from all corners by the rigid socio-political structures exists in the society. It is high time to evaluate the program in broad horizon so that the program fulfils its objectives and the poor people get benefit out of it. ……………………………………………………..

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