Panchayats in Rajasthan ignorant about NREG, says survey

Jaipur, May 31 (UNI) Village panchayats in Rajasthan know very little about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and ignorance can make even best-designed developmental schemes meet a pathetic end, says a survey.

The study was conducted by PRIA, a state resource centre with 10 voluntary development organistions in Karauli to assess the role of panchayats in the delivery of NREGS and to gauge the gaps that existed in the implementation of the schemes at the grassroots.

The state government was implementing NREG in six districts -Banswara, Dungarpur, Udaipur, Sirohi and Jhalawar including Karauli.

The NREG aims to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment every financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour.

The data from the study of four panchayat samitis-Sapotara, Karauli, Nadauri, Hindaun, which covered 3,000 households and 30 gram sabhas showed that people in panchayats knew very little about the scheme.

The study found the panchayats were given the responsibility of implementing NREGS and gram sabhas the role of facilitating the scheme. But the survey found thatthe village secretarywas the person who took the decisions, made registrations and issued job cards.

Women sarpanch were found to be more ignorant due to illiteracy and dependency on village secretary and their husbands.

The survey also showed that though the scheme had the provision of sharing the registration lists issuing job cards with gram sabhas but was not found to be existing on the ground.

UNI RRT SI ND1448