About: MGNREGA
The mandate of the MGNREGA is to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work at an average daily wage of ₹209.
The scheme is key to providing livelihoods to poor villagers and is a backbone of the rural economy in difficult times.
It is a demand driven wage employment programme and resource transfer from Centre to States is based on the demand for employment in each State.
Overall, 6 crore families hold active job cards under the scheme, and almost 5.5 crore families found work under the scheme in 2019.
The core objectives of the MGNREGS are:
Providing not less than one hundred days of unskilled manual work as a guaranteed employment in a financial year to every household in rural areas as per demand, resulting in creation of productive assets of prescribed quality and durability
Strengthening the livelihood resource base of the poor
Proactively ensuring social inclusion
Strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions
The goals are:
Social protection for the most vulnerable people living in rural India by guaranteeing wage employment opportunities.
Enhance livelihood security of the rural poor through generation of wage employment opportunities in works leading to creation of durable assets.
Rejuvenate natural resource base of rural areas.
Create a durable and productive rural asset base.
Empowerment of the socially disadvantaged, especially, women, Scheduled Castes (SCs)and Scheduled Tribes (STs), through the processes of a rights-based legislation.
Strengthen decentralised, participatory planning through convergence of various anti-poverty and livelihoods initiatives.
Deepen democracy at the grassroots by strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions.
Paradigm shift with the implementation of MGNREGA
MGNREGA is bottom-up, people-centered, demand-driven, self-selecting and rights-based programme.
It provides a legal guarantee for wage employment by providing allowances and compensation both in cases of failure to provide work on demand and delays in payment of wages for work undertaken.
Plans and decisions regarding the nature and choice of works to be undertaken, the order in which each worksite selection etc., are all to be made in open assemblies of the Gram Sabha (GS) and ratified by the GP.
Social audit is a new feature, which creates accountability of performance, especially towards immediate stakeholders.
Thus, MGNREGA also marks a break from the relief programmes of the past towards an integrated natural resource management and livelihoods generation perspective.
