Resources
A selection of resource material on NREGA
Articles and Papers
Multiplier accelerator synergy in NREGA
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | Leader Page | 30/4/2009
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More on Direct Cash Transfers
Devesh Kapur, Partha Mukhopadhyay, Arvind SubramanianEconomic and Political Weekly | November/2008
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Direct cash transfer no panacea by itself
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | Leader Page | 20/9/2008
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NREGA: Andhra Pradesh shows the way
Mihir Shah & Pramathesh AmbastaThe Hindu | Leader Page | 8/9/2008
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Direct Cash Transfers: No Magic Bullet
Mihir ShahEconomic and Political Weekly | 23/8/2008
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NREG Two Years On : Where Do We Go from Here?
Santosh MehrotraEconomic and Political Weekly | 2/8/2008
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The real radicalism of NREGA
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | Leader Page | 22/5/2008
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Governance reform key to NREGA success
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | Leader Page | 14/3/2008
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Two Years of NREGA: The Road Ahead
Pramathesh Ambasta, P S Vijay Shankar, Mihir ShahEconomic and Political Weekly | 23/02/2008
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Employment Guarantee: Progress So Far
Lalit MathurEconomic and Political Weekly | 29/12/2007
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NREGA: Dismantling the Contractor Raj
Jean Drèze The Hindu | Leader Page | 20/11/2007
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Employment Guarantee, Civil Society and Indian Democracy
Mihir ShahEconomic and Political Weekly | 17/11/2007
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Social Audits in Andhra Pradesh:A Process in Evolution
Karuna Vakati Aakella, Sowmya KidambiEconomic and Political Weekly | 4/11/2007
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Will Employment Guarantee Deliver?
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | Leader Page | 10/5/2006
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Revising the Schedule of Rates: An Imperative for NREGA
Vijay Shankar, Rangu Rao, Nivedita Banerji and Mihir ShahEconomic and Political Weekly | 29/04/2006
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Employment guarantee – MPs lead the way
Mihir ShahThe Hindu | op-ed page | 10/8/2005
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Opportunities and Challenges
Richard Mahapatra, Neha Sakhuja, Sandip Das, Supriya SinghNREGA is catching up development people’s imagination. Policy makers have to focus on the Act’s development effectiveness.
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An Ecological Act : A backgrounder to
the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA)
Prepared by Natural Resource Management and Livelihood UnitThe paper makes a case for using the NREGA into an effective development tool. While listing its development opportunities, the paper flags off the many challenges for it.
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National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Andhra Pradesh
Claims and questions in operationalisation (2007-08)
CH. Ravi Kumar, D. Rakesh Kumar and S. SeethalakshmiClaims and questions in operationalisation (2007-08)
This paper presents a brief analysis of performance of NREGS-AP in 2007-08 based on the official data. We expect that the issues raised in this paper will be critiqued and tested at various levels by both policy makers and practitioners and better processes of operationalisation will be evolved.
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Triumph of transparency
SOWMYA KERBART SIVAKUMARA campaign in Rajasthan highlights how difficult it can be to get a social audit done on public projects.
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Evaluation of Implementation of NREGS in Orissa
Social Audit ReportDownload report - Word Document File
Performance Test Report of Shade
Rural and Environment Development Society (REDS)Rural and Environment Development Society (REDS), Kadiri, Anantapur has developed four models of shades as part of the worksite facilities under the NREGS programme. Following is a Performance Test Report of these Shades.
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Annual Reports
First Annual Report of National Consortium on NREGA
October 2009On the 14th October, 2009 the First Annual Report was released to the nation in a special function by Dr. C.P. Joshi, Minister for Rural Development, GoI. Shri Nandan Nilekani, Chairperson, Unique Identification Authority of India, was the Guest of Honour.
Download Annual Report in PDF format - English version
Download Annual Report in PDF format - Hindi version
Training Manuals
NREGA Watershed Works Manual
Baba Amte Centre for People’s Empowerment, Samaj Pragati SahayogThis manual is meant for those individuals and organisations who will be involved in planning, implementing and/or monitoring NREGA. These can be PRI representatives, grass-roots NGOs or government officials engaged with this process at different levels. The manual is focused on earthen water harvesting structures that will be built under NREGA. These are likely to form the bulk of the work done under the scheme.
The manual is organised into 17 chapters. The first two chapters provide an introduction to NREGA. They outline the historic significance of the Act and also provide a brief summary of its official guidelines. The next four chapters introduce you to the concepts required for an understanding of the watershed approach through which the earthen water harvesting structures are to be built and also the concepts that are used in building these structures. This includes an introduction to the use of maps and also to basic techniques of surveying that help calculate levels and slopes of the land. A separate chapter is devoted to the social and institutional aspects involved in doing this work.
Chapters 7 to 14 introduce the most important watershed structures, one by one. Each chapter tells us about why these structures are built, how we decide where to locate them, how we lay them out over the watershed, how their design is arrived at, how we construct them as also the precautions we need to observe in doing so. Chapter 15 tells us how to use books called the Schedule of Rates in order to estimate how much each of these structures will cost. It teaches this through a series of numerical examples.
Chapter 16 raises a number of questions about the way the Schedule of Rates have been formulated. We provide reasons for why these rates need to be revised. We also suggest that the entire process of arriving at these rates needs to be much more location-specific, as also transparent and participatory in nature.
Finally, Chapter 17 teaches the basics of the double-entry system of accounts, through a series of typical transactions to be handled by the implementing agency.
For hard copies of the manual, please contact core@samprag.org specifying the language and number of copies you want. Each copy will cost you Rs. 300. Cheques in the name of SAMAJ PRAGATI SAHAYOG to be sent to the address below:
Samaj Pragati Sahayog
Bagli
District Dewas
Madhya Pradesh 455227
The soft copy of the manual is free to download
Download manual - English version (Pdf)
Download manual - Hindi version (Pdf)
Reference Manual on Ecological Consideration in NREGA
Foundation for Ecological SecurityThis manual is designed to provide an ecological perspective to the implementation of the programmes under the NREGA in order to achieve long-term livelihood sustainability. The ecological perspective is needed to work for the improvement of the natural resource base and for sustaining the ecological systems on which large number of people depend for their livelihoods. This manual hopes to provide sufficient operational guidelines for such an approach. This is not a manual covering all aspects of ecological restoration and confines the discussion to the scope of such work within the limits of NREG projects.
The soft copy of the manual is free to download
Download manual - English version (Pdf)
Films
NREGA Reforms : Building Rural India
Samaj Pragati Sahayog has just completed a film on NREGA in both Hindi
(Rozgaar Gaarantee: Nayi Aazaadi Ki Or?) and English (NREGA Reforms:
Building Rural India).This 56 minute film takes you on a fascinating journey through space and time. It traces the historical roots of NREGA to the Great Depression of the 1920s. It brings to you myriad voices of the people of India’s remote rural hinterlands who speak of the distress that led to the enactment of NREGA, the problems facing the implementation of the program and their efforts to make it a success on the ground.
Implemented well, the NREGA can regenerate the environment and create millions of sustainable livelihoods, thereby kick-starting a stagnant rural economy. The film provides powerful visual evidence of the enormous potential of NREGA and outlines the reforms required to help realize this potential.
The film has been scripted by Mihir Shah and made by the SPS international award winning film team led by FTII graduates Shobhit Jain and Pinky Brahma Choudhury.
For copies of the film, please contact core@samprag.org specifying the language and number of copies you want. Each copy will cost you Rs. 500. Cheques in the name of SAMAJ PRAGATI SAHAYOG to be sent to the address below:
Samaj Pragati Sahayog
Bagli
District Dewas
Madhya Pradesh 455227
Watershed Development Films
Samaj Pragati Sahayog This set of 5 films describes very simple, low-cost methods to address the problem of water -- methods that can easily be used by local people, utilising locally available natural resources. We demystify the seemingly complex technical details of location, design and construction of watershed structures. These films illustrate the creativity and meticulousness involved in fine-tuning our interventions to match the immense diversity of nature. This approach constitutes a new paradigm of development that does not seek mastery over nature but grows organically from the soil, achieving environmental regeneration, livelihood security and people's empowerment, all in one stroke.
For copies of the film, please contact core@samprag.org specifying the language and number of copies you want. Each film DVD (that includes both Hindi and English versions) will cost you Rs. 500. The entire set of 5 films will cost you Rs.2000. Cheques in the name of SAMAJ PRAGATI SAHAYOG to be sent to the address below:
Samaj Pragati Sahayog
Bagli
District Dewas
Madhya Pradesh 455227