WATER CONCRETE TRUTH
The share of water structures constructed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has gone down from 20 per cent in 2014-15 to 10 per cent in 2018-19
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A 2015 paper in the
studied 20 blocks of Maharashtra in 2014 to assess the impact of MGNREGA works through a survey of beneficiaries. Respondents felt the scheme provided more control over water and assured timely, adequate availability not only for agricultural and livestock purpose, but also for drinking purpose. The IEG 2018 study on the impact of MGNREGA on 30 districts in 21 states between 2015-16 and 2017-18 found increase in productivity, income, fodder availability, acreage and even rise in the watertable. Gross annual income per household of all the 30 districts taken together increased from `85,000 to `95,000—over 11 per cent growth in two years.
It is beyond doubt that the water works created under MGNREGA have a huge potential to irrigate fields and improve crop production. The Centre has earmarked almost 75 per cent of MGNREGA for water related works in FY 2019-20 in comparison to 63 per cent in FY 2018-19. But there is scope for improvement. Creation of optimum structures will be possible only if discusssions are held among planners, hydrogeologists and policymakers. In several cases, structures were built without basin geometry analysis. These were either abandoned later or have become nonfunctional. Hundreds of check dams were constructed on streams, which later dried up the streams due to wrong planning. “Mostly, 25 per cent of the works done under
MGNREGA are useless,” says Ashish Ranjan Jha of Jan Jagaran Shakti Sangathan, a Bihar-based trade union that carried out social audits till 2013. In fact, the share of water-related works under MGNREGA has steadily gone down and stands at just 8.4 per cent. The downward trend is also visible in drought-prone states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (see “Concrete truth”, p36-37).
MGNREGA incorporates three key policy strategies that are important avenues for providing support to vulnerable communities in the context of climate change—social protection, small-scale infrastructure development and a community-based planning architecture, states Harry W Fischer of Department of Urban and Rural Development, University of Melbourne, Australia, in his 2019 paper. Fischer has analysed asset creation under the Act in 798 projects of Himachal Pradesh. It shows that
MGNREGA is bringing benefits to the public by reducing exposure to climate and other risks in a variety of ways. Development projects are helping to mitigate key climaterelated challenges that area households face, while labour provides a critical contribution to the basic livelihood security of many marginal groups. Clearly, MGNREGA is beneficial in more ways than one.