NREGA and Environment Protection

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), has become the base for creating a nationwide scheme called National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The name of Mahatma Gandhi has frequently been added to this law, so that it is often also called MG-NREGA. One indication of the reach of this scheme in a country with a rural population of over a billion people is that NREGA has become almost a household word in rural India. At its best, this scheme, when nurtured by caring officials, panchayats (elected councils of rural decentralisation) and activists, has made a huge contribution to helping rural workers and peasants and to development activities in general. At its worst, its implementation has been marred by large-scale corruption and fake work. There are indications of actual implementation moving away from the actual law, although impressive achievements at a few places are still a reminder that this law and its scheme can achieve much more at the national level than what it has achieved so far.

 Since its early days, the usefulness of NREGA for water conservation and water-harvesting was realised, and a significant share of the earlier works were devoted to this. However, with the passage of time, the usefulness of NREGA for a diversity of work related to environment protection in rural areas has been better appreciated, and a significant share of this work can also contribute to a lesser or greater extent also to climate change adaptation and mitigation. If this is accepted, then the resources available nationally and internationally for climate change mitigation and adaptation can also be additionally tapped for utilisation under NREGA. If the desirable implementation reforms can also be made, then the potential for more durable and sustainable achievements can also increase very significantly.

Increasing afforestation on the basis of indigenous species of trees, steps for regeneration of degraded forest and pasture land, soil and water conservation, repair and restoration of traditional water sources or removal of excessively accumulated silt and weeds from them, taking various steps that can help in at least partial rejuvenation of depleted or vanishing (more or less)small rivers and other water bodies, creation of farm ponds, cleaning of various water channels and when required deepening them at some carefully identified places, repair of embankments and protection walls–all these tasks are very helpful for villagers in various ways but in addition are also important components of climate change mitigation and adaptation. All this also helps to create the base in which natural farming and horticulture can prosper in better ways, thereby reducing the burden of fossil fuels.

 It is, of course, true that NREGA was initially envisaged more as a social justice law, which was supposed to help reduce rural poverty and unemployment. Of course, this role of NREGA remains very important. However this does not mean that one should neglect or underestimate the other important role of very useful assets being created or very important tasks being completed in the course of employment generation, of a kind that in turn provide the base for sustainable livelihoods to prosper in better ways and more or better protection being provided from disasters like droughts and floods.

[Contributed by Bharat Dogra]

Back to Home Page

Frontier
Vol 57, No. 52, June 22 - 28, 2025