>> I found this really weird in NREGA ... the requirement that no >> mechanized equipment can be used. What was the motivation behind it ? > > >> >> Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than minimum >> wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member of each >> household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for it.
That is perhaps the intention - though the stated point is to generate as much rural employment as possible. Therefore all delays are okay. So if you start building a canal you over-hire, and then each guy can quite literally use a spoon to scoop out dirt if they want. Mostly (anecdotal from farmer-types) you find people chatting away near what seems to be a canal, because that's how the incentives are - the work isn't really back breaking other than that you only need to do what you want to do - the first few years I think people have worked hard, until they're realized that they don't need to :) One per household is a good point, though in real life, sadly, it has come to mean that each man is his own household, and sometimes each woman as well, and people get paid. To jugaad the system, some get paid less than the ordained amount. The documents - job cards, muster rolls, payslips enjoy themselves in terms of providing addresses or identifying underlying households. I don't know about the percentages, but I think the number of desperately poor is probably far lesser than the number of people paid out by NREGA...just saying.
