Implementation and Monitoring of National schemes

Central and State governments are planning and rolling large out social and Infrastructure related programs that aim to benefit the rural and urban poor. However its time to take an unbiased view of the success and outcomes of these programs.
Let’s take NREG, it is a well meaning initiative that aims to guarantee 200 days or so work. I have seen its implementation in my village and have doubts on the effectiveness of the outcome. Men and women are being put to dig harvest canals in hot sun. The collective output is a couple of feet width and length of canal clearance. Once the water is released into the canals for the harvest the effort would be annulled. Can there be better thinking on the implementation, can such effort be used for canal lining so that the product stays longer and is useful. I guess we can gain 10 times more productivity by using machinery to dig canal than using axes and pickles.
There might me cases of success of NREG as reported in the media but such schemes should be clear on the guidelines and what types of activities can be carried out as part of the scheme.
Take the case of White ration cards in Andhra Pradesh. The number of ineligible families owning the White card is mind blowing. Very poor execution and monitoring of these schemes is one of the reasons that the real beneficiaries are being left behind.
Farm loan waiver is one another case which was implemented in a haphazard manner. It always seems to be the case where the real ones for whom it is planned is left out during the implementation.
Delivery mechanisms of the central and state social welfare schemes need to be reviewed. Planning out ways to deliver the benefits directly to the recipient without intermediate layers is one way. Laws should be enacted to penalize and make it a criminal offence to benefit from such programs if one is not the intended beneficiary. Else Central and state governments will be rolling out schemes which are useful for electoral purposes but not for the real purpose of their initiation “benefiting the poor “.