Part of: GS Prelims and Mains II – Government policies and interventions for development; Welfare/Social schemes
About MGNREGA
It stands for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005
It guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members (at least 18 years of age) volunteer to do unskilled work.
It has unique legal architecture of being demand-driven, and not budget constrained.
It is social security and labour law that aims to enforce the ‘right to work’.
It has provision for unemployment allowance, when the state cannot provide work
Agriculture and allied activities constitute more than 65% of the works taken up under the programme.
MGNREGA has helped build rural infrastructure through approximately 10 crore families.
Problems facing MGNREGA
Governments capping its financial resources and turning it into supply-based programme
Workers had begun to lose interest in working under it because of the inordinate delays in wage payments.
With very little autonomy, gram panchayats found its implementation cumbersome
As a result, over the last few years, MGNREGA had begun to face an existential crisis.
New concerns:
The Scheme has already used up almost half its allocated funds.
It spent more than ₹48,500 crore out of the expanded ₹1 lakh crore allocation announced (during COVID outbreak)
In several Gram Panchayats, the approved projects have already been exhausted.
A number of gram panchayats in vulnerable areas have already exhausted their funds for the scheme.
Measures needed:
Centre should allocate another ₹1 lakh crore to the scheme
It has to double the permitted work limit to 200 days per household.
