Saeed Khan | TNN Ahmedabad: Gujarat government might have got a reprimand from Centre for not implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in a proper manner, but residents in a distant Naroda village of the Panchamahals district found a new pressure tactic to get the scheme implemented systematically.

Sandip Das Launched in February 2006, UPA government's mega National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which for the first time guaranteed 100 days of manual labour to each rural household, continue to make news for all the right as well as wrong reasons. Initially launched in the 200 backward districts as identified by the Planning Commission, the impact of NREGA has been a mixed bag.

Tarun Das India's agenda should be to transform itself into a superpower of peace and prosperity. # Reversing the decline in the manufacturing sector is critical # Micro-enterprise has come to stay # Skills training can transform lives and enable the poor to earn, save, and spend

Owing to ignorance on the part of poor villagers and lack of interest being shown by nationalised and cooperative banks, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is facing a rough weather in the district despite more than two months of its implementation on paper. Of the 25,000-odd poor families who have shown interest in getting employment under this scheme and actually procured application forms from the authorities, only 1,677 have so far been able to get job cards, which are a prerequisite for demanding job under the scheme.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was launched in North Tripura with job cards to 30 families of Hirachhara and Golakpur village under tribal area autonomous district council as the first step of NREGA execution in the localities. An official release here today said at a formal ceremony at Srirampur HS School ground yesterday, venue of Bharat Nirman Campaign of Ministry of Broadcasting, the Government handed over the job cards to the selected beneficiaries.

P. Sainath The NREGA is having multiple and layered effects. With better wages, the bargaining power of the weakest has gone up a notch. Lakshmamma hopes the NREG work will continue. But she's up against a powerful combine of forces entrenched in the countryside and ensconced in Delhi's power elite. "Why can't they keep the schools open during summer,' asks P. Somamma in Mosangi. A strange question, with the mercury blazing past 43 Celsius in the Nalgonda village and all of us cowering in the little shade we can find.

Alleging that the State government is intentionally delaying the job card distribution procedure under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the Sadou Assam Gramin Shramik Sanstha said that the rural people are being cheated in the name of the scheme. Addressing a press meet recently, the general secretary of the association Arup Kumar Mahanta said that the scheme is being exploited both by the State-level leadership and the block-level Congressmen for their vested interests.

P. Sainath The programme is "life-saving.' This time round, the poor have slightly more money than they did earlier. But all prices are up. Still on the margins: NREG work has seen migration levels fall sharply in Kondapur. Just three years ago, there were 40 to 45 bus services a week to Mumbai from Mahbubnagar district. This year the number is down to 28. Kondapur is deserted. It usually is, in the month of May. This village in Mahbubnagar district of Telangana falls in the belt known for some of the highest levels of migration in south India each year.

P. Sainath The complaints are many and often justified. People are sometimes exasperated by the way the NREGA system works. But there is unanimity on its worth and value. Gadasu Ramulu, past 70: Hunger and rising prices are driving the old and the very young to work. In the time of crisis, NREGA work is their lifeline. He says he is not 70 but is, in fact, "quite a few years older.' "Anyway, how can I tell exactly?'