Impact of National Rural Employment Programme in Himachal Pradesh, 1985, by Kanwar P. Chand and R. Swarup

Abstract: Despite the all round development in our economy, the incidence of poverty continues unabated. Unemployment and underemployment being the main causes o poverty, efforts were initiated in each successive Five Year Plan to tackle it through creation of gainful employment. During last one decade and half about half a dozen special rural employment programmes were implemented. Amongst these, ‘Food For Work Programme’ became very popular and came to be recognized as a major instrument of rural employment and development. However, due to some operational weaknesses, it was reconstituted in the form of ‘National Rural Employment Programme”. With this background present study was conducted on the basis of the percentage expenditure on NREP to total financial allocation in two districts one good (Kangra) and other poor (Sirmour). The finding of the study reveals that the actual expenditure increased to Rs.23.46 millions in 1984-85 from Rs.21.20 million in 1982.83. On the other hand employment generated declined to 1.4 million mandays from 1.8 million mandays during the same period. The inverse relationship between the two has been due to continues increase in wage levels and rising material costs. However, target fixed have been considerably achieved. In case of duration of employment in Kangra district around 40 per cent of the workers could not get employment for more than a month; hardly 20 percent of participating households were able to get employment for 2-3 months in NREP.On the other hand, picture of Sirmour district is altogether different, where majority of the participating families (around 60 per cent) got employment far a minimum of two months.