Oceanic Potentialities and Himalayan Hurdles

The MGNREGA is a mixed bag of achievements and failures, characterized further by huge potentialities and abysmal gap in implementation that simultaneously gives rise to hope and despair. Universal approach in tandem with the self-selection process has ensured seamless reach of the programme to the marginalized rural poor; the rights-based framework hosted through community-centric implementation process has asserted moral rights of the citizens. Its community-centric implementation process has invigorated decentralized democratic development process that has also facilitated political capacity building at the grassroots level. On the flipside, persistence of distress demand for wage employment in about five crore of rural households creates a sense despair as how long the rural poor would need MGNREGA to walk free from the crutches of the state-sponsored EGS. At the same time, the vast majority of them could not get 100 days of their entitled employment that discounts the working of the full potentialities, and in a way, explains the reason for persistence of distress demand for wage employment. Strengthening institutional capacity of local-self-government, a long overdue, is of utmost importance for realizing the twin objectives of employment and assets creation. There is a political challenge as well. There have been persistent attack that might become aggressive with passing of each year. There is an emerging sense of fatigue with the MGNREGA.