Records: Centre asked Nagaland to pull up MGNREGS socks

Nagaland directed to complete tasks by August ‘without fail’ 

Dimapur, July 2 : Records documenting the proceedings of a meeting of the Empowered Committee on State Rural Development Plan (SRDP) three months ago show that the ministry of Rural Development had asked the Nagaland government to straighten their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) desk.

During the meeting, the ministry observed that, among several other issues, Nagaland was showing ‘poor’ rate of work-completion; start exerting more efforts on public works under the Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Aadhaar data seeding; the state ‘did not’ submit the State Skilling Plan as well, according to the minutes of the meeting that was obtained by this publication on Saturday, July 2, stated.

The ministry has also made clear to Nagaland that it ought to make efforts to complete all incomplete works by August 31, 2016, and without fail.
Likewise, it is obvious that the Rural Development ministry had emphasized on strengthening the monitoring mechanisms in the state. “…field supervision needs to be strengthened and it has to be properly documented in the state,” the record stated. A copy of it was signed by Dr. Kushal Pathak, director of the SAGY, Rural Development ministry, and addressed to the secretary of the Nagaland Rural Development department.

The minutes show that the meeting was of the Empowered Committee on State Rural Development Plan (SRDP) including Labour Budget for the state of Nagaland, for the financial Year 2016-2017. The meeting of the committee was conducted on March 15, 2016 at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi. It was presided over by the secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development.

According to the records, the state government of Nagaland was represented by Kelei Zeliang, secretary to the department of Rural Development, Nagaland.

After going through the presentations made by the state, the meeting-minutes state, and after due discussion on various aspects of implementation of the MGNREGA, the committee made a number of “observations.”

First, the committee observed that since inception till 31.03.2015, the percentage of works completed stood at 70 %.

“During FY 2015-16, the percentage of works completed is 16.38 %. It is advised that all works taken up till 31.03.2015 should be completed and this ministry’s letter…may be referred to in this regard. The state will examine the reasons for poor rate of completion of works,” the record stated.

Nagaland will make efforts for completing all incomplete works by August 31, 2016, and without fail, the ministry stated.

In regard to public works associated with the NRM, the committee observed that out of the total number of works, 4, 600 (21. 71 % of total work) were taken as public works relating to the NRM during the financial year 2015-2016.

“The state needs to scale up the works related to NRM during the FY 2016-17. The state is requested to ensure linkage between MGNREGS and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayi Yojana (PMKSY),” the committee stated.

Thirdly, the committee gave a remark about creation of individual assets. In order to strengthen the livelihood resource base of the rural poor, the committee stated, it was ‘desirable’ to put adequate emphasis on creation of more and more individual assets, the ministry stated.

“An analysis of the performance of the number of individual assets being created reveal that, out of the total works, 5 I 7 works (2.46 % of the total works) have been taken up on individual land in FY 2015-16 (as on 09.03.2016). The state is expected to take up more works under individual category and get them completed on time,” the committee said.

The committee also had a word for Nagaland’s progress in expediting the Aadhaar seeding process. “As of now, there are 5.61 Iakh active workers, out of which 0.44 lakh (1%) have been seeded in MIS,” the committee stated.

“Against the Aadhaar numbers seeded in MIS, no worker has been converted to Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS). To expedite the process of Aadhaar enrolment of MGNREGA workers and seeding the same into their bank accounts, camps may be organized at block and GP level as advised…(in a letter) by department of Financial Services and department of Rural Development,” the committee stated.

“The State needs to expedite pace of seeding of Aadhaar data into the NREGA soft.”

On the issue of “skilling” unskilled MGNREGA workers, the committee stated that Nagaland “did not submit the State Skilling Plan” as only 7 HHs had completed l 00 days.

The state may propose relaxation in 100-day criteria which will be evaluated by the ministry, the committee suggested.

Another requisite that the state government has yet to implement, apparently, was the Social Audit Action Plan. Said plan must be instated first for the state of Nagaland to be eligible to receive funds for said Financial Year, the records stated.

The committee remarked:

“Implementation of Social Audit Action Plan: Conducting of Social Audit as laid down in the Audit of Scheme Rules 2011 is mandatory for the state to be eligible for release of funds for 2016-17. The state is expected to take…steps,” the committee stated.

The ‘steps’ are: setting up said society, engagement of full time director; recruitment of core staff such as SRPs and DRPs, bank account of SAU, finalization of Social Audit Calendar by the 31st of March, 2016 and ‘notification of governing body.’

The ministry has also asked the state department to strengthen the monitoring mechanism. “Monitoring mechanism with emphasis on field supervision needs to be strengthened and it has to be properly documented in the State,” the committee stated.

The state government of Nagaland is also to furnish month-wise and district-wise person days, the letter stated.

On issues pertaining to livelihood and convergence, the Rural Development committee sought more efforts to improve the livelihood resource base of the poor by appropriately converging MGNREGA with other Rural Development programs. “Under no circumstances, the state will revise the approved Labour Budget for 2016-17 without the prior approval of the ministry,” the committee added.