The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
Context:
- The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act programme is supposed to provide a safety net for these households, but it has faced cutbacks, and state governments are facing cash crunches.
- This has led to an exacerbation of the conditions that force the working poor to migrate to urban centers.
About MGNREGA and its main features:
- Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005or MGNREGA, earlier known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA, is an Indian social welfare measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’.
- The Act aims to follow the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Part IV of the Constitution of India.
- The law by providing a ‘right to work’ is consistent with Article 41 that directs the State to secure to all citizens the right to work.
- The statute also seeks to protect the environment through rural works which is consistent with Article 48A that directs the State to protect the environment.
- It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to at least one member of every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
- Women are guaranteed one third of the jobs made available under the MGNREGA.
- Another aim of MGNREGA is to create durable assets (such as roads, canals, ponds and wells).
- Employment is to be provided within 5 km of an applicant’s residence, and minimum wages are to be paid.
- If work is not provided within 15 days of applying, applicants are entitled to an unemployment allowance.
- That is, if the government fails to provide employment, it has to provide certain unemployment allowances to those people.
- Thus, employment under MGNREGA is a legal entitlement.
- Apart from providing economic security and creating rural assets, other things said to promote NREGA are that it can help in protecting the environment, empowering rural women, reducing rural-urban migration and fostering social equity, among others.
- The Ministry of Rural Development, a section of the Government of India’s economic bureau, was in charge of overseeing the implementation and rollout of the plan.
- Gram Panchayats-governing heads in rural villages, were the envoy for implementing the scheme at the local level.
Benefits of the scheme:
- Providing paid guaranteed employment in rural areas
- Increased spending power in villages to drive India’s consumption growth
- Greater social inclusion for those residing in rural India
- Improvements and creation of infrastructure in Indian villages
- Better utilisation of under-utilised and unutilised labour resources
- Enhancing the power of Gram Panchayats
- Better utilisation of naturally occurring land and water resources in rural areas
- Rejuvenates the natural resource base of rural areas
- Creates a durable and productive rural asset base
- Deepens democracy at the grassroots by strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions
- Provides empowerment to socially disadvantaged, especially, women, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), through the processes of rights-based legislation
Challenges:
- Poor planning and lack of administrative skills
- Lack of focus on objectives
- Difficulty in funding the scheme
- Corruption and Irregularities
- Inadequate awareness among the people
- Connectivity issues with MGNREGAMATES
Way forward:
- Large scale social security programmes like MGNREA are subjected to undergo several stumbling blocks.
- Government and NGOs must study the impact of MGNREGA in rural areas so as to ensure that this massive anti-poverty scheme is not getting diluted from its actual path and to see that the disparity in terms of socio-economic condition among people in rural and urban areas is reduced to considerable extend.
Syllabus: GS II; Schemes for Vulnerable sections
SOURCE: HANS INDIA
