National Food for Work Programme

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The National Food For Work Programme (NFFWP) was initiated in November 2004 as a precursor to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which will be implemented initially in the same 150 districts where the NFFWP is being implemented (these being the poorest in the country).

The design and implementation of the NFFWP are particularly important issues given the debate surrounding the efficacy of the NREGA itself. The material in this section presents a review and critique of the programme, based primarily on a field survey conducted in the summer of 2005 by the Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics, and the Centre for Equity Studies.

Basic Information

• Guidelines of the NFFWP [Hindi]
• List of NFFWP districts
• Critique of NFFWP guidelines

Survey Reports

The NFFWP survey was conducted over two months in seven districts, primarily in North India. Reports from the survey teams are available below. Details on the mechanics of the survey, including survey guidelines and questionnaires, can be found in the section on Research and Surveys.

• Badwani (Madhya Pradesh)
• Dahanu (Maharashtra)
• Surguja (Chhattisgarh)
• Palamau (Jharkhand)
• Sonebhadra [1] [2] (Uttar Pradesh)
• Puruliya (West Bengal)
• Dungarpur (Rajasthan)

NFFWP in the Media

• Loot for Work (Jean Drèze) [Hindu, 2 July 2005]
• The Faceless Female Worker: Why women toil for free in food-for-work programme (Brinda Karat) [Times of India, 22 June 2005]
• Wages fail to come in time (Nistula Hebbar) [Business Standard, 16 May 2005]
• Not all poor get work here (Nistula Hebbar)[Business Standard, 17 May 2005]
• Grain for workers reach mandis (Nistula Hebbar)[Business Standard, 18 May 2005]
• Nobody knows what to build (Nistula Hebbar)[Business Standard, 19 May 2005]

Last updated: 10 February 2006