NREGA - A Snapshot

One of the most frustrating aspects of doing development research in India is the lack of aggregated state by state information on the implementation of centrally sponsored schemes. So that the rest of you don't have to go through this process, we have gathered updated state by state stats on how NREGA is performing throughout the country. Our analysis is pretty much a replication of Dreze and Oldiges' excellent updates on the scheme published in previous years.

Implementation: All India

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has attained extraordinary scale over the past few years since its inception. In 2008-09 the programme generated 261 crore person-days of employment compared to 144 in the previous fiscal year. Employment in NREGA surged in regard to person-days per rural household, per job card and per household employed in NREGA. The programme has scaled up enormously in terms of employment-days generated and outlays, which almost doubled to 27000 crore from 15000 crore in previous fiscal year. As compared to last fiscal NREGA has added 285 more districts to its roster.

(click on table to see an expanded version)

Delving more into the data, we found some interesting changes. Share of wages in total expenditure has declined from 68 to 66.89 percent and also the wage cost per-person(average expenditure on wage payments per person) has declined from Rs.75 to Rs. 67. Increasing material requirement and increasing prices may be one possible reason for this change. The share of ST’s (scheduled caste) in employment has continued with its falling trend as of last year. This is likely due to the phased roll out strategy for NREGA which targeted poorer districts with relatively larger shares of ST populations for the first and second phases of roll out.

State-Specific Pattern

As in the previous fiscal year Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and few north eastern states have been the leaders in terms of employment generation (person-days per rural household). States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra which have been falling back on a comparative performance scale (employment-days generated) have had minor improvements in terms of employment generation. Interestingly, the “leader” states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh) have had significant decline in their employment generations in terms of person days per rural household.

(click on table to see an expanded version)

Continuing with their abysmally low contribution states like Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Orissa, West Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat have seen a decline in their employment generation figures, in comparison with last year. A reason apart from the conventional argument of less political willingness in these states is that increased vigilance has suppressed the tendency of fudging the employment figures.

Participation of women in NREGA has increased to around 48% from last year’s figure of 44%. Interestingly, states like Himanchal Pradesh and Bihar have increased their share of women dramatically and are closer to the threshold level of 33%.

Another aspect of state-specific comparisons is the changes in wage rates. Owing to an increase in minimum wage rates, states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himanchal Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra have been observed to have dramatic increases in their average wages (Rs./Day). There was a simultaneous increase in productivity linked to improved work site management which caused a surge in wages. As an exception, Tamil Nadu has had a significant decline in its average wages as compared to last fiscal year.