Hyderabad|India|:In yet another feather to its cap, Andhra Pradesh has bagged the credit of being No. 1 State in the country in the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP).

An in-depth and critical Study done by an independent agency, the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations on NREGA, has revealed that the performance of Andhra Pradesh in the implementation of the scheme is remarkable and unparallel in the country. This is the first time that an independent NGO which made a very comprehensive multi-disciplinary critical Study praised a State in such a way.

The main finding of the Study is that A.P.Rural Development Department, by employing the Information Technology tools, techniques and robust social audit and with a determined backing from the State Government, implemented the NREGP in the most effective manner. Andhra Pradesh has become not only the role-model in the successful implementation of the most popular programme, but also appreciated worldwide for its flawless processing and timely payment of wages to the workers.

The State Government, in the meanwhile decided to further strengthen and spread the NREGP to reach all nook and corners of the State and see that maximum benefit is derived from the programme. The Chief Minister, who reviewed the working of the NREGP in Andhra Pradesh with Mr. G.Chinna Reddy, Minister for Rural Development Mr. K.Raju, Principal Secretary, RD and other senior officials of the department, said more works would be taken up under the programme and maximum number of families would be given the assured days of job and payment.

The Chief Minister said it is pertinent to note that the passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is an important part of the UPA's Common Minimum Programme envisaged in 2004. The Consortium Study shows that NREGA implementation has generally been poor in most of the states. While many States report high expenditure, independent enquiries reveal leakages in money reaching the poor. However, Andhra Pradesh affords an extraordinary counter-example bucking this trend. The Study finds that what has happened in the State over the last two years is unparalleled in the history of independent India but these soul-stirring events have received surprisingly little attention. Critical in what Andhra Pradesh has achieved is the extraordinary support of top echelons of the political and bureaucratic leadership.

Political support has, of course, been a necessary but by no means sufficient condition. Two other novel features have turned the tide, viz., the effective use of Information Technology (IT) and the role of Civil Society. All stages of NREGP work, from registration of workers to issue of job cards, preparation of work estimates, muster rolls and payments to workers have been totally computerised. With strong administrative backing and robust social audit, this IT System frees information from the shackles of power and privileged access.

Acknowledging the complaints from all over India about delays and corruption in payment of fair wages under NREGP, the study pointed out that in Andhra Pradesh, there is a sharp contrast with labour payments being made within a week of completion of the previous week's work. All payments to labour are made only through these accounts; there are no payments in cash.

The Study authored by its co-founders Mihir Shah & Pramathesh Ambasta finds that since the computer system is tightly integrated end-to-end, any work registered in the system is alive, status-visible and amenable to tracking. Delays at any stage can thus be immediately identified and corrected. The system keeps track of the work from the day the work-ID is generated and starts flagging delays in the payment cycle as soon as they occur. Because the network secures all levels from the ground up to the State headquarters and data are transparently and immediately available on the website, a delay at any stage is instantly noticed by the monitoring system. The free availability of this information on the website also facilitates public scrutiny, thus engendering greater transparency and better social audit.

The social audit process culminates in a massive public meeting at the mandal headquarters attended by the people from every village, their elected representatives, the media, the NREGA functionaries concerned, and senior government officers. At this meeting, village-wise social audit findings are read out, workers testify and the officials concerned respond to the issues raised by giving an explanation about their action under complaint. Officials are also required to specify the nature of remedial action they will take and in what time period. Senior officials affix responsibility and a number of corrective or disciplinary actions are taken during the meeting itself. Social audit rules specify that "an Action Taken Report shall be filed by the Program Officer within a month of the social audit being conducted and the same shall be communicated to the Gram Sabha." In addition, there is a rigorous follow-up where social audit teams go back to their villages every 15 days after the mandal public meeting to ensure that the decisions taken are actually enforced.

One full round of this process has now been completed in over 35,000 habitations. This is nearly half of rural Andhra Pradesh. Around 30,000 trained village youth are conducting this social audit that has already covered more than 1.2 crore people. On many occasions, errant officials have "voluntarily" returned money to workers at the mandal public meeting itself. The palpable impact on rural governance of such a spectacle, which invariably continues uninterrupted for 10-12 hours, is easy to imagine. Action has been initiated against thousands of officials and a number of criminal cases have been registered. Forty lakh NREGP records have been publicly scrutinized under the RTI. Independent studies reveal that awareness about the provisions of NREGA has risen.