The campaign, to be rolled out in a phased manner across the six PACS Programme states, will run for a period of seven months, from June to December 2008.

Around 480 villages will be covered directly by NREGS Campaign 2008, which will be implemented by civil society organisations (CSOs) that were part of the first phase of the PACS Programme, or were part of networks created by the programme, such as the Dushkal Hatavu Manus Jagavu (DHMJ) drought forum in Maharashtra.

Announcing this, Programme Coordinator Kiran Sharma from Development Alternatives said that NREGS Campaign 2008 would focus on the following issues that particularly impact the poor:

• Discriminatory practices against women, such as unequal employment opportunities, unequal wages, lack of Creche facilities, and inequitable workload.
• Exclusion of dalits, tribals, women, disabled and other marginalised groups.
• Improper and corrupt practices, such as fraud in wage payments, use of contractors, failure to create a shelf of works, etc.

The campaign will also meet key programme objectives in the run-up to PACS Plus.

It will help maintain the community-based platform for advocacy created in the first phase of the programme, through around 45,000 community-based organisations (CBOs).

Different stakeholders involved in the first phase of the programme will continue to share information, helping ensure a smooth transition to PACS Plus.

Activities

Four main activities will be conducted under NREGS Campaign 2008.

In the first stage, there will be village-level awareness campaigns across the 94 PACS Programme districts.

In the second stage, village meetings will be conducted to gather testimonials of good and bad practices. Over 1,400 testimonials are expected to be collected.

In the third phase, there will be district-level advocacy workshops and meetings to address issues that evolved from the village meetings. Redressal will be sought by presenting the testimonials to the media and appropriate authorities.

The campaign processes will culminate in state-level workshops for policymakers and the media, with the participation of top officials from relevant departments such as rural development, panchayati raj, and women and child development.

Selected testimonials will be presented at each state workshop. A consolidated report of campaign processes and cases will be given to the relevant officials.

These activities will be conducted in 16 clusters: Nawada, Gaya, Tirhut and Madhubani in Bihar; Deoghar, Hazaribag and Ranchi in Jharkhand; central, eastern and Bundelkhand regions of Uttar Pradesh; central, Maikal and Bundelkhand regions of Madhya Pradesh; Surguja in Chhattisgarh; and Marathwada and Vidarbha in Maharashtra.

Information gathered from these clusters will be analysed and presented in a national report that will be shared with central and state governments, policymakers and the media.

The report will provide detailed, evidence-based information on the current status of the NREGS and recommendations for improvement.

NREGS Campaign 2008 is the output of a series of discussions held by the Management Consultants with a range of stakeholders over two months, and inputs from DFID-India.

DFID-India has designated a three-member advisory team to provide guidance and oversight to the campaign process.

The central management unit of the Management Consultants for the campaign includes a programme coordinator, a programme manager, technical support executives and two members from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Resource organisations will anchor the campaign at the state level.

The campaign has already taken off in Maharashtra with cluster-level meetings, followed by village-level awareness campaigns launched in June 2008.

A massive NREGS campaign was organised during the first phase of the PACS Programme as well, yielding state-wise reports on implementation of the scheme.

To read about the earlier NREGS campaign, click here. To read earlier reports on implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in PACS Programme areas, see under `NREGS Status Reports here.