Rural Employment Scheme In India €“ Review Of The Scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mgnrega)

Unemployment is one of the major problems faced all over the world. According to International Labour Organisation (ILO) “unemployment covers people who are: out of work, want a job, have actively sought work in the previous four weeks and are available to start work within the next fortnight; or out of work and have accepted a job that they are waiting to start in the next fortnight”. India since early independence always had focus on the rural areas and unemployment abolishment. This article is made in a effort to summerise the scenario of rural unemployment in India and the measures taken by the government to abolish the rural unemployment. Dev (2009) mentioned that “public works programmes have been a central component of the safety net approach in India since the 1960s, with the aim of improving the livelihood security of rural households by creating employment and developing rural infrastructure and assets” (Dev, 2009). Ministry of Rural Development in its report (2008) mentioned that “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was passed in the Indian Constitution in September 2005, and has three overarching goals: 1) employment creation; 2) regeneration of the natural resource base and creation of productive assets in rural areas; and 3) strengthening of grassroots processes of democracy through transparent and accountable governance” (MoRD, 2008). Planning Commission (2008) conducted a survey in 20 states to study the impact of MGNREGA and the results showed that “there is a huge change of low income groups (about 50%) hiking towards high income groups, significant increase in the expenditure on food and non-food items (6%) & change in the expenditure pattern, procurement of livestock (68%) & household articles (42%). Initiation of savings for the first time (2%), clearing of outstanding loans (1/5th of sample households) were some of the positive impacts of MGNREGA on rural households. The other things observed were the non-provision of employment within stipulated timeframe (80%) and non-payment of unemployment allowances, utilization of small portion of households for more than 35 days of work and existence of distress migration” and so on. This article is aimed to eloborately explain a rural employment scheme of India named MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), it’s implimentation and implications.