Mgnrega and women

MGNREGA AND WOMEN

S.M. VIJAYANANDADDITIONAL SECRETARY

DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENTGOVERNMENT OF INDIA

INTRODUCTION

A well structured Act

An Act of the activists

Pro-people, pro-poor, pro-women

Only developmental legislation giving central place to Panchayats especially at the village level

Only programme where the content actually has to emanate from the grassroots

The core objective of the Act is “enhancement of livelihood security”.

GENDER SENSITIVE FEATURES OF THE ACT AND THE SCHEME

One-third of employment to women

Equality of wages

Mandate to provide facilities at worksite including crèche and carer for children

Planning mainly by Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayat which are more people friendly

Work to be provided within 5 km. distance

GENDER SENSITIVE FEATURES OF THE ACT AND THE SCHEME

(contd…..)

Focus on works which are doable by women

Absence of contractors

One-third of non-official members of the Employment Guarantee Council at State and Central level to be women

Importance given to transparency and Social Audit

Provision for gender sensitive schedule of rates

THE KERALA EXPERIENCE

A. BACKGROUND

Asset focus in wage employment programmes from days of NREP

Works organized by middle-men – “benami” contractors

Need to break the system and make it rooted in people

Need to eliminate patronage and corruption

Statesman like political decision to implement the Act in letter and spirit


B. INVOLVEMENT OF KUDUMBASHREE

Awareness generation

Mobilization people for job cards

Identification of works

Organizing works

Getting the workers

Providing the mate

Providing facilities

Follow up on payments


C. POSITIVE FEATURES

Zero corruption

Dignity of public work

Never-ever-worked women joining the

work force

Succour to the needy

High level of personal savings

Real financial inclusion


Positive spending of savings for health, education of children, for assets with value, etc.

Increase in intra-household status

Enhanced feeling of fraternity

Few instances of public action

Convergence with livelihood activities of SHGs Land development for vegetable/paddy cultivation


D. CHALLENGES

Not yet rights-based

Perverse incentives affecting quality of work

Issues regarding choice of mate

Co-option by Panchayats

Co-option by political parties

Threat of greedy middle-men

Negative perceptions


E. NEXT STEPS

Norms for selecting mate

Organizing labour groups and enhancing their skills

Upgrading mates to barefoot engineers

Linking works to Natural Resource Management

Community-based Social Audit

Moving on to Anti-Poverty Sub-Plan through the SHG network

LESSONS Need to engender

To reduce corruption

To make it really demand-based

For poverty/livelihood impact

How to engenderLink with NRLM ab initio

Reach out proactively

Formally incorporate it into processes and procedures

Make work standards gender-sensitive

Structure labour groups as sub-system of SHGs

Improve skills in a phased manner

Link up with the ICDs system especially for looking after small children

Identify tools for making them easier for women to use

LESSONS How to increase women participation

Combat Cultural Factors

Sensitive use of Community Resource Persons

Images and lessons from other States

Spread the concept of “public work”

Sensitize PRIs – especially, elected women representatives

Try Action Research on the lines of UP experiments of UN Women

See MGNREGS in the larger context of poverty reduction

CONCLUSION

For deeper processes

For cleaner practices

For larger social and economic benefits

For all these, consciously engender MGNREGS

Mgnrega and women

Education

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