The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is a landmark scheme in many ways. With a budget outlay of 39,000 Crore in the current budget(2009-10) there is an increased attention towards this scheme and its efficacy in improving quality of rural life.

The scheme has not been without its fair share of detractors. For a larger period, there were questions being raised about leakages in the system to the potential of the programme to be rolled out in such a large scale in all districts across the country. Today, we have moved beyond such questions and we are questioning the nature of works being adopted and whether the assets being created are of a permanent nature and whether the state should be spending huge amounts on this scheme without any tangible long standing assets being created and whether investments are being made in improving the skillset of the beneficiaries which would help them in the longer run. A set of academicians have argued that in the light of non permanency of the assets being created under this scheme, this is nothing but a cash transfer scheme which in the lack of an unique identity scheme can not materialize.[1]

Another issue that the program has to grapple with is the non-uniformity of implementation across different states. Some states like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have taken the lead in implementation, whereas other states are still being seen as laggards. What is needed is a national oversight team, under the ministry of labour or ministry of rural development that can identify the best practices across states and disseminate this information.

Issues of lack of awareness amongst beneficiaries, inadequate trained engineering staff to monitor the nature of works being undertaken, inadequacies in staff at the panchayat and taluk levels to provide for the administrative back bone of this scheme – resulting in delayed job cards delivery, delay in processing applications and eventually payments are complaints that have for long plagued the scheme.

On another front, what the NREGA has silently achieved through its payment mechanisms is a larger inclusion of the rural poor into mainstream banking, a move which hitherto was not considered easy. The scheme also scores on transparency measures that are being inbuilt into the program. The MIS systems provided on the program website are fairly comprehensive and ensures information symmetry amongst several stakeholders.

At our visits to gram panchayats in the Kolar district we found that all the problems that we have mentioned about the program still continue to exist. Awareness in several quadrants about this scheme was low, nature of works being adopted appeared ad-hoc and without sound reasoning of long term value being generated and there did exist complaints of delayed payments and procedural delays. However, working silently were people like the secretary of Shivarapatna Panchayat(Malur Taluk), who were working in their own silent ways to ensure that things improved on the implementation front. We commend this indomitable spirit of ground level workers to bring in a transformation at their own level.

At this stage, what is required is critical evaluation of nature of works being undertaken, the ground level issues that hamper the streamlined work delivery and a greater emphasis on parallel up-gradation of beneficiaries’ skill levels.

[1] http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/nrega-vs-nilekani/363493/

Conclusion of “Implementation issues with NREGA” – A submission for “Managing Government Studies” course – Term IV

YST goes down…

This post is an extremely Me-Me-Only post. While some might argue that this blog has always been an exercise in vanity, I still maintain that at several different stages, this blog has served several different purposes.

Take I – Handwriting. Inspired by post at Austere’s, here is a bad resolution photograph of a page from my class notes from a subject called “Managing Government Studies”

Take II – This one is an embedded video from NDTV.com. and as Selukar says, in a sense we shared screen space with Pranab Da himself and I personally feel youths is not the right usage. But maybe I am wrong.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1132742

Take III – This one is for the love of Bangalore, from Times of India. Thanks Darinia. At some levels its a lament on the city, at another level a trip down nostalgia lane or maybe just that I am a glutton.

In the absence of a thumbnail preview. Please feel free to click http://tinyurl.com/m6khr9

End of Narcissistic Content. Regular programming shall continue soon.

Have you seen one of those news items on television, which appear annually once with undying regularity – Premium Institutes of Management (replace Premium with Indian if you want) and their fee hikes and how banks are waiting to ensure loans are disbursed. Crap. The loss of respect I have had to endure to ensure release of some amount as a loan has left me really miffed at this whole exercise. Finally, I think I will have to pay from my pocket.

And then there are institute aids… A JOKE!

Written by Mahasweta Devi at the heart of the naxalite movement in West Bengal(somewhere in the late 70s). Read the English translation by Samik Bandopadhyaya . I have never read a HindiBengali translation, but this one was totally in a different league.

Spanning a day in the life of a Bengali mother, it traces her reconstruction of her son’s life and the revolution he had been a part of an died for. Anything that I write here can not substitute for what you would go through as you share Sujata’s journey – a journey in which she goes through her own life and of the life that she had planned for her son and more importantly to piece through facets of her son’s life that her son had so effectively hidden from her.

Along the narrative, the author stays clear of glorifying the revolution and yet at the same time questions the right of society to be dismissive of these young men and women.

Do this. Buy yourself this book.(Not available in most of the crosswords and Oddysseys of the world – atleast not in Hyderabad, I got mine ordering it online from http://indiaplaza.in). I promise you, it will get you thinking.

Thanks Austere(http://austereseeker.blogspot.com) for introducing me to Mahasweta Devi through a blog post.

PS: There also is a movie by the same name by Govind Nihalani starring Jaya Bachhan and Nandita Das amongst others. Read that it had received quite some crititcal acclaim as well.

Children are funny things…they laugh in mirth at others’ tears

I buried my face in the sun warmed hedge and smelled the flowers and pain…

This is a test post. Posting from Windows Live Writely to evaluate how it fares. Regular programming will continue shortly.

First to begin with - a clarification. The subject of the previous post wasnt me. Much as I would have loved it, Two years of wait it would have to be.

Back to this post.

Years ago, when I was in 11th , I would watch television - news channel to be specific all through the day. Those were the days twenty four hour news channels had made their advent. A pretty lady would appear in one of those breakfast news shows. I would watch her, all along assuming that she was talking only to me. There is something about the news anchor that you would almost assume that she was making a conversation with you.

Waiting until the news show was over, I would head to college; Assured beyond any element of doubt that after such a start the day could never go bad.

Years passed the anchor moved from morning show to prime time. I moved through periods of prolonged TV depravity(thanks to hostel life) and out of adolescence. Today back in the airconditioned confines of this guest house, the lady appears on the news channel. Prettier than ever. You wonder where those years went by? You smile and watch the pretty lady paying almost no heed to the news item she is talking. Draped in a saree - she looks just like those long gone days. I know its easy to jump and say “Beauty is often just skin deep”. Try telling a 15 year old teenager….

Ms Razdan, wish you well.

Its strange … the first post that I am posting from Hyderabad comes almost a month after I reached this place and more importantly, when I am locked out of the house … one of the other roommates has the key and yours truly returns back from a hard day’s work to find the room locked while the others are having dinner elsewhere.

Hyderabad has been a nice experience this far. There are places named Hitech City and Cyberabad(I am not kidding this place is actually called Cyberabad). After using Hyderabad roads for a few days - you start falling in love with the place. Bangalore seems decades behind - atleast while comparing the state of the roads, the flyovers and the other stuff. And the traffic - makes riding a bike fun all over again. Something which Bangalore has totally lost it. At times like these you actually begin to wonder, whether you have been living in delusion about Bangalore being the best city(And considering the manner in which Royal Challengers Bangalore have been playing there is hardly anything to cheer about). That and beyond the only thing that works against this place is the weather. Blazing hot sun through the day.  But except the weekend, we hardly get to see the same. As Prof. T would say back in college…we are a part of the cold chain now. We step from Air conditioned homes to Air conditioned offices to Air conditioned malls back to Air conditioned houses. The only thing missing from the cold chain mentioned was Airconditioned vehicles to ferry us around… something which has been replaced by the ingenious ‘Share Auto’ where there are 5 passengers in one tiny bajaj auto, two on either side of the driver and three behind. Anything as long as the auto fare is split. Well, on a related note Auto drivers are still canny … if you dont speak the rough telugu + urdu combo…be rest assured you will always pay a couple of 10 rupee notes above the going price.

House seems to be a good place, but we pay a whooping 35K in rent for a 3BHK…aint it scary about the kind of times that we live in? But luckily we can divide the rent by the 5 inmates and it seems affordable then. And yes, before I forget you need to add 5K for the AC’s electricity bill and 4K for the broker and 2K for maintenance. Yes, the math indeed gets murky.

But wait, why am I typing all this here…well, for starters I am still locked outside and these guys show no signs of being anywhere nearby and mosquitoes are making life miserable for me. But thanks to the wireless connection that seems to be coming out of our room, I still am connected to the internet.

Ok, now about work. Work has been decent so far…but surprise I have to wear a formal shirt and formal trousers and formal shoes and head to work. After being accustomed to Yahoo!’s informal work culture this does come as a shock and more so as a pain - but well, things could be worse like few folks in Mumbai who have to wear a blazer everyday as well. So no complaints there.

And yes, did I tell you I played cricket(the leather ball kinds) here for the company team. Playing after leather ball cricket after 10 years(last played in circa 1999 - Cottonian Shield, Bangalore for Presidency School). Well the experience was extremely forgettable given how draining Hyderabad heat can be on a Saturday morning. So no more cricket for me…

And finally how did I even remember that I had a blog? The name.com domain registration cames for expiry this month end. And if I am going to be paying $14 I might as well type in something occasionally.

More later…

PS: No sign of these guys yet….

When it was time to buy a bike, I had to make a choice between Bajaj Pulsar and TVS Apache. My dream bike was an Yamaha RX135 though, which unfortunately Yamaha had stopped production. I chose TVS Apache, simply because every Thiruchelvan, Deepak and Harish around me had a pulsar! The quest for choosing something different lead me to buy Apache. An Awesome bike btw…

Today, somone had this question … “Would you buy a Tata Nano?”… I said Yes, if I had the money…Where did that quest for uniqueness go?