Rural Visit Programme

on
“Labor problem in respect to the NREGA
programme”
A comprehensive report for Jamikunta mandal, Dist. Karimnagar

In
Association with
Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK)
Jamikunta
Dist: Karimnagar

Submitted by :
Submitted to :
Jitendra Bhattal
Programme Coordinator,
Rahul Kapse
National Institute of Agricultural
Ketan Grag
Extension Management ,
Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 1 Prasenjit Gorai
(MANAGE), Rajendranagar,
Sutanu S. Ghosh
Hyderabad 500030
PGDM(ABM) 2009/11
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is a matter of great pride for us to be associated with KVK, Jamikunta,

Karimnagar district. We hereby would like to thank KVK and all its staff
members whomever we came across, for their kind hospitality and
cooperation during our attachment for Rural visit(RV) project work.

We heartily thank our project guide Dr. N. Venkateshwara Rao, Project

Director, KVK for all the care and guidance given to us during the project.

We would also like to thank Dr. Vikram Singh, Programme coordinator

PGDM (ABM), MANAGE, Dr. Venkatarao, Batch Coordinator, PGDMABM
2009-11 and Sivakumar sir for giving us the opportunity to be associated
with the KVK.

Our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation goes to all farmers whose patient
answers to our queries formed the foundation of project. We reverently
express our special regards to KVK members Dr. M. Janardanreaddy, Mr.
Shivakrishnan and all other field assistants specially Sathyanarayan ji who
helped us driving to the numerous places regarding the work and helped
us to make this project a success; without their contribution the work
would never have completed.

And thanks Mr. Bill Gates for this wonderful software “MS Word”. You
made our life easy.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 2

(Authors)

Executive Summery

The Village Visit Programme (Live Project) scheduled for second

year PGDM (ABM) students from February 18-28, 2011 the purpose of
which was to understand the village activities, problems, opportunities
faced by the farmer community of that KVK area and suggest possible
solutions within the resources of the farmers and also advising them to
take advantage of the existing programmes and schemes. The study also
attempt to throw light of the present status of the area, opportunities for
growth and the strategies for farmers. The project assigned to the
students was “Labor problems in respect to the NREGA
programme”

Apart from this the report would also contain the village
profile, status of agriculture in the village, scope for diversification,
intensification, challenges and prospects, water management, organic vs.
inorganic cultivation practices, value addition processing, credit delivery,
problems of marketing, extension delivery mechanism, IPM, INM, seed
replacement etc.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 3

Host Institution:
Krishi Vikas Kendra, Jamikunta was rechristened from Grama Nava
Nirman Samithi, which was a voluntary organization founded by Sri P.
Janardana Readdy in 1974. Owing to the nature of the work and support
given to the farming community ICAR sanctioned it as a Krishi Vikas
Kendra. The KVK is not only responsible for lab to land transfer of
technology but also to organize front line demonstrations in various crops
to generate productive data and feedback information along with
vocational training to the women folk. The areas that we visited are given
as under:
Village visited under Jamikunta block (BDO-Shri T. Hanmaiah):
Sl. Village Manadal Populatio Sarpanch Water Source
No n
.
1. Dandepall Elakaturi <2000 Ch. SREP
i Ceeraswamy Command

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 4

 Area

2. Gopalpur Elakaturi <5000 V. Prabhakar Rainfed

3. Perkapadi Saidapur <2000 M. Vikshapati Watershed Model
Village

District profile:
Karimnagar district is bestowed with vast natural resources. With
the advent of the Sree Ram Sagar Project(SREP) 35 mandals of
Karimnagar has made rapid development in terms of agricultural
production and productivity. A brief profile is given below:-
Total mandals 57
Total villages 1047
Population 35,75,543
Farmers population 5,33,585
Total geographical area 11,88,499 ha
Cultivable land 5,72,714 ha
Irrigated area 281131 ha
Rain fed area 291583 ha

Landholdingpattern byfarmers
340023

No. of farmers

110971
80147

2444

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 5

Cropping Pattern:
The cropping patterns of the area depend on the availability of the water.
Some of the cropping patterns adopted by the farmers are:

Kharif Rabi Summer

Rice Rice Fallow
Rice Maize Fallow
Maize Fallow
Maize Groundnut Fallow
Cotton Fallow
Cotton Maize
Redgram Fallow
Castor Fallow

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 6

Soil type of the district:
Soil Type Characteristics Are in Ha
Sandy Loam Coarse, neutral to 313996
moderate alkaline, low
OC
Red Chalka Non calcareous, 156998
shallow with low
fertility
Black cotton Calcareous, medium 52332
fertile, low OC matter

Horticulture and Fishery:

The district is well suited for dry land agriculture. The predominate
crops are Mango, Sweet oranges and vegetables and spices like chili,
turmeric etc. Presently the area under horticulture crops stands at 17 ha.
Karimnagar district is richly supplied with natural water sources.
There are 607 departmental tanks, 2 major reservoirs and nearly 5000
gram panchayat tanks with 45000 ha of water spread. On top of that
Godavari River also flows nearby. There are 4 seed farms with the
requirement of 12 crore fish seeds as of now. The above mentioned
sources can provide for just the 30% of the requirement. So there is
immense potential for the development of fish seed banks on the
commercial basis.

Water Management:
The areas that we surveyed were belonging to 3 different water
supply patterns. While Dandepalli and Perkapali were falling in the SREP
command area and watershed village respectively, Gopalpur was a rainfed
area. In Gopalpur, an area of around 470 ha falls under the river

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 7

catchment area which represents 40% of the farm area of the villages.
Rest is irrigated by tank and wells.
In Perkapalli, a watershed has been developed with the
collaboration of Indo German initiative and NABARD with a cost of about
13lakhs. The watershed consists of 5 check dams which changed the face
of about 300-400 ac. The average water table is at 10-15 meters. Prior to
the watershed the water table was at around 200ft. so much so that the
watershed has received the “Best Integrated Watershed model”. This
has not only been beneficial for the agricultural purpose but also for the
allied activities such as sheep and goat rearing, dairy, etc.

Challenges and prospects:

All the surveyed villages are well connected with feeder roads
which are metallic. Due to the availability of the SREP project the area is
very much fertile and productive in nature. A varied type of crops is
grown. There is significant presence of education in the villages as they
contain both the secondary and higher secondary schools. Empowerment
of the women members is also present in the villages. The farmers face a
major problem of market ability and market for their products. They are
also not aware of the mobile based platforms for knowing the prices of the
mandi at Jamikunta or Mulkanoor. So, here lies an opportunity where the
private companies with easy to use solutions can leverage and deliver
better value to the farmers in terms of price. Also there is a presence of
dairy cooperatives in the village of watershed command area. This fetches
an additional income to the farmers. The watershed which was built in
Perkapadi has become a significant change in the village, average land
value has gone up, and so have the productivity and the addition of allied
activities. More such

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 8

programme should be identified and can be done. In fact, farmers have
asked for the same but their voice has not reached to the concerned
departments.

Seed Replacement:
Indian farming system from ages has relied on the farm saved seeds
for their crops. However, due to the advent of the hybrid crops farmers
are slowly adopting new F1 generation seeds. Farmers rely on good
quality hybrid seeds for rice and BT seeds for cotton. Seed replacement
ratio across the area was reported to be 50-65 percent in Rice and about
95 percent in cotton.

Organic vs. Inorganic practices:

All the farmers of all the villages surveyed were aware of the
concept of organic cultivation and knew that the cost of cultivation while
adopting organic practices decreases. However, the major complaint was
that, how to have a substantial income for the initial years? Apart from
this the farmers also said that due to the absence of certification agency
in the area they do not get actual value of the produce and hence they are
not much interested in organic cultivation i.e. there is a clear lack of
market ability and premium pricing for the product. Also field level
technical knowledge is absent which has been restricted to classroom
discussion. Fewer advanced farmers try to spread the knowledge which is
not enough. The government should adopt a village for an entire period
and give necessary training which in terms will get spread into the
neighboring villages. As of now farmers practice organics in less than 5
guntas of their available land (avg landholding 3-4ac).The farmer practices
a mixture of organic along with inorganic practices which also helps them
in cost cutting. The use of Harvesters and reapers is prevalent by the

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 9

large farmers and presence of tractor in the houses of the village is a
common sight.

INM and IPM:

Farmers are aware of the concepts. They use a mix and match of
the available solutions, consults the KVK and the progressive farmers.
Light traps were used by them. But mostly they were depending on
chemicals for the control because the effect is immediate and effective as
compared to other alternative techniques. When enquired the farmers of
Gopalpur told that in a village at around 110 ac of land is under IPM and
INM strategies.

Credit Delivery:
Credit facilitates for the farmers are available from both the
organized and unorganized sources. Farmers avail loans from their
respective area’s cooperative banks. A few Microfinance companies were
also actively serving the area such as SKS, Spandana Sphoorty, etc.
However after the recent debacle of the micro finance sector their
activities have been restricted. The villages complained that they do have
caught themselves into a debt trap. The companies not only go for giving
multiple loans but also coerce them to take up additional policies for them
and their family members. The outstanding amount was yet to be
collected by the company agents. The farmers however showed no
intension to return the amount.
Nonetheless disposable income and spending capacity of the
farmers had increased due to this flow of credit in the rural system.
Farmers with whom we discussed things flashed their medium to high end
mobile phones; it was also evident from the discussion that the average
spending on consumer durables has also increased in the villages.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 10

The MNEREGA Programme:-
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act (MNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation
on August 25, 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for 100 days
of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural
household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the
statutory minimum wage of 100 per day in 2009 prices. The Central
government outlay for scheme is 40,000 crore in FY 2010-11.

This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power
of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in
rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around one-
third of the stipulated work force is women. The law was initially called the

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 11

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) but was renamed
on 2 October 2009. Provisions under the scheme are as follows:

1) Adult members of a rural household, willing to do unskilled manual

work, may apply for registration in writing or orally to the local Gram
Panchayat.
2) The Gram Panchayat after due verification will issue a Job Card. The
Job Card will bear the photograph of all adult members of the
household willing to work under NREGA and is free of cost.
3) The Job Card should be issued within 15 days of application.
4) A Job Card holder may submit a written application for employment
to the Gram Panchayat, stating the time and duration for which work
is sought. The minimum days of employment have to be at least
fourteen.
5) The Gram Panchayat will issue a dated receipt of the written
application for employment, against which the guarantee of
providing employment within 15 days operates
6) Employment will be given within 15 days of application for work, if it
is not then daily unemployment allowance as per the Act, has to be
paid liability of payment of unemployment allowance is of the
States.
7) Work should ordinarily be provided within 5 km radius of the village.
In case work is provided beyond 5 km, extra wages of 10% are
payable to meet additional transportation and living expenses
8) Wages are to be paid according to the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for
agricultural labourers in the State, unless the Centre notices a wage
rate which will not be less than 60 per day. Equal wages will be
provided to both men and women.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 12

The details for the MNEREGA scheme for Karimnagar district under which
the survey area falls is given as under:

District Karimnagar MNEREGA Details:

Employment provided to 3.8033 Lakh
households: Persondays [in
Lakh]:
Total: 239.6
SCs: 73 [30.47%]
STs: 15.3 [6.39%]
Women: 160.4 [66.94%]
Others: 151.3 [63.15%]
Total fund: 271.99 Crores
Expenditure: 279.51 Crore.
Total works taken up: 59493
Works completed: 28034
Works in progress : 31459

JAMIKUNTA: Jammikunta is a town and mandal in Karimnagar District in

the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a small town with a population
just above 50,000. Jammikunta is the centre for trade and education for
60 odd surrounding villages.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 13

 The block’s NREGA scheme details are fully IT supported. The server
provider is BSNL and the centre is properly staffed. However, when
checked for the details none of the information related to the nature of
work, employed people and details on Job cards were not available on the
site. The natures of work undertaken by the scheme are as follows:
1. Rural Connectivity
2. Flood Control
3. Water Conservation and Water harvesting
4. Drought proofing
5. Micro Irrigation
6. Provision for irrigation Facilities
7. Renovation of traditional water bodies
8. Land development
9. Other activities approved by MRD.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 14

Problems in the MNEREGA system:
The scheme is referred to as the EGS scheme in the village
parlance. With the advent of the scheme the agriculture labor problem has
been highly aggravated in all the areas. The laborers are demanding more
and more wages. A comparison of the local labor rates are given below:
Pre MNEREGA(`) Post MNEREGA(`)
Men 150 300- 250
Women 80-100 150
Average Work Hours 8 4-5
Timings 8-12 o’clock Usually 8am – 5pm.

Previously work used to be done irrespective of the farming season.

Hence it was very difficult for the farmers to get laborers during the
season. Laborers not only used to demand huge amount of wages but the
availability was itself a problem which gave raise to imbalances in the
payments given by the farmers and hence rivalry. For eg, suppose a
farmers is paying Rs. 90 for a particular activity, another farmer may be
paying Rs. 100 for the same work thereby driving up not only the cost but
inter farmer rivalry. However, due to the demand of the local conditions
later the workings were restricted to the non farming seasons. But these
conditions are limited only to some villages.

Working hours itself was a problem. In the government run schemes

the labors are working only for 3-4 hrs. In many cases these 4 hours was
also not serious work but just whiling away the time. Actual labor done
was very less, and due to regulatory issues the contractor several times
fails to make the workers work. Irrespective of the work done the worker
was to be paid a sum of 100 at the end of the work. At times the labors
work for 4 hrs in the morning in the EGS scheme and afternoon hours goes
to the farmer’s field to maximize his income of the day. As compared to

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 15

work in the farmers field the working hours were quite rigorous under the
supervision of the farmer and the worker had to work for a strict 8 hrs with
half an hour break for rest and food. Overall the productivity of the labor
has been seriously affected due to the scheme.

Due to this it was also noticed that not only the farmers of below
poverty lines were working but well do farmers were also engaged in this
scheme related work. This was detrimental for not only the scheme but
also the principle activity of the farmers as well i.e. farming. The farmers
of the region confidently said that all of them go to do the EGS work.

Availability of labor is yet another issue. The labor usually comes

from the nearby villages. Whenever there is any ongoing activity of EGS
scheme the labor goes to that area.

With all the above complains which the farmers had, a quite peculiar
issue came up. With the advent of the EGS scheme the cropping pattern
itself has been changing in the areas. Due to non availability and shortage
of labor the farmers are going for crops which are less labor intensive.
Previously this area were largely under Rice and Ground nut which has
been replaced by Cotton and Maize which are comparatively less labor
intensive crops than the prior crops. This has given rise to a pseudo
Monoculture system in the area. As a result the fertility of the soil will be
largely affected in the long run. The farmers also reported that certain
area already faces seriously damage from deficiency of micronutrients
such as Boron and Zinc (Farmers are usually using hybrid rice seeds which
are quite heavy removers of macro and micro nutrients from the soil.) As
the lands are well irrigated due to the SREP irrigation project the farmers
are also facing the problem of salinity.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 16

 Another complaint which the farmers had due to this MNEREGA
scheme is that the farming activity actually gets delayed. The work for
e.g. transplanting in paddy which should be carried out in 2/3 days used to
get delayed by 1 week or so, due to unavailability of labor, laziness of the
labor, wage problems, disputes, etc. Sometimes there is a clash of the
EGS work and the farming activities. As a result the whole process of the
farming activity usually gets delayed by 30-40 days which adversely
affects the productivity and health of the crops.

The farmers also complained that there is a problem with the

allocation of the budget problem. As per the rule the authority need to
spend 60% of the allotted budget to get the next set of the money to be
passed from the state and the centre. Hence, when money is received it is
spend in a hasty way usually by some useless work and charges of non
allocation were also raised. The contractor also does the job assigned in a
haphazard manner leading to poor quality work.

The work itself is more or less standardized in place of the region

specific activity. For e.g. if the BDO says that the sum has to be spend on
road maintenance activities, throughout his entire jurisdiction area similar
work is carried out, rather than region specific work. In other area may be
de-silting of the river bed would be a far more beneficial work rather than
road maintenance and repair.

The farmers had raised several of these issues at their annual

meetings in the Agricultural universities, however still there has been little
effect on field as on date.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 17

The villages that our team surveyed the following nature of the works
were undertaken:

Nature of Work Rating by the Villagers

Vegetation removal Not considered worth a work
Pond Digging Beneficial
Canal Bed Dredging Most Useful
Canal/ Tank Repairing Most useful
Jungle Cutting Not much useful.
Road repair Useful

Probable solutions for the Labor problem:

After the survey of the area we found that the problems were more or less
similar in all areas. The farmers unanimously believed that the EGS
scheme has done more harm than good at least from the farmer
perspective. On one hand it has brought more income in the hand of the
farm labors but at the cost of increasing cost of cultivation and shifting of
farming practices. The EGS scheme has made the labor more and more
adamant and demanding and lazy. Few possible solutions which came out
of the focused group discussions (FGD) are given as follows:
1. Complete stopping of all the EGS related activity in the farming
season.
2. EGS system can be streamlined with the farming activities on a 50
percent cost sharing basis with the farmers.
3. Standardization of work (based on nature of activity) should be
discontinued with immediate effect.
4. Working of the labor in EGS scheme related work should be carefully
surveyed; the current practice is that irrespective of work the labor
gets paid at the end of the day which breeds laziness and
discourages other labors.

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 18

Conclusion:
A streamlined solution for the problems is very urgent for the
affected areas. Else it is wastage of resources both in terms of quality of
work and the funds available for the work. Seeing the effect of watershed
structures in the villages where it is present other villages are also
demanding for similar structures. A feasibility study should be carried out
by NABARD and other organizations with the involvement of the local
people to benefit the same. It is no less of a miracle what we found out
that how small interventions can make big change in the income of
people, their prosperity and the development of quality asset for the
village as a whole. The system should also adopt villages to give a hand
holding training on organic practices, quality issues, their market ability,
etc. Adopting the strategies the villages can be made more and more
prosperous thus restricting not only human capital in the villages but also
mitigate the problems of migrations from village to urban area. A step by
step policy making and intervention can definitely make available urban
amenities in rural areas (PURA).

Participants members of FGD during surveys

Village: Dandepalli
V. Annaraul 6.5 ac Cotton, paddy
C. H. Kurumulla 3 ac Do
Srinivas H. 4 ac Do

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 19

B. Soumayya 4 ac. Chilli, paddy, cotton
Hanumantha Rao 5 ac Fishery, Paddy, Cotton,
chilli
C. H. Viraswamy 5 Do
Village: Gopalpur
Ch. Rajaswamy 5 ac Chilli, Paddy,
vegetables
Kumarsamy 4 ac Paddy, cotton, maize
V. Ramalu 1.5 ac Paddy
Prabhakar Rao 3ac Cotton, Paddy
K. Narayan 4 ac Vegetables, Paddy
Prabhakar V. 6 ac Cotton, Rice, Fishery
Village: Peranpalli Watershed Command Village
Name Designtion
Bhikshapati Sarpanch
Kumarasamy Village Dairy Coop Secetraty
Anil Kumar Watershed Command Area engg..
Amrut Singh Chairman
G. Vijjirao Dairy Coop Chairman
Praveen Kumar Secretary
T. Jagraniamma Member
Errakam G. Member
Rajamma Member

References:
1. www.agricoop.nic.in
2. http://www.kvkkarimnagar.com/
3. KVK Publications Jamikunta, KVK
4. http://nrega.nic.in/netnrega/home.aspx
5. http://nrega.nic.in/netnrega/Homedist.aspx?
is_statefund=Y&lflag=local&district_code=0220&district_name=KAR
IMNAGAR&state_name=ANDHRA%20PRADESH&state_Code=02

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 20

 6. nrega.nic.in/MISreport.htm

Rural Visit Report, Jamikunta team, PGDM (ABM)9/11 Page 21