In a Seminar on Women Participation in Mahatma Gandhi NREGA organized by the Department of Panchayats & Rural Development on 20th March, 2013 at Jorasanko Thakurbari, Shri S. M. Vijayanand, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of rural Development, Government of India made this presentation based on the Kerala experience in women participation in MGNREGA.

1. MGNREGA AND WOMEN
S.M. VIJAYANAND
ADDITIONAL SECRETARY
DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

2. 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”.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. THE KERALA EXPERIENCE
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

7. THE KERALA EXPERIENCE
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

8. THE KERALA EXPERIENCE
 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

9. THE KERALA EXPERIENCE
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

10. THE KERALA EXPERIENCE
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

11. LESSONS
 Need to engender
To reduce corruption
To make it really demand-based
For poverty/livelihood impact
 How to engender
Link 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

12. 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

13. CONCLUSION
 For deeper processes
 For cleaner practices
 For larger social and economic benefits
For all these, consciously engender MGNREGS