MGNREGS (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Economy)

Context: The Centre is expected to introduce Aadhaar-linked face authentication for workers in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) next year to address recent concerns of significant spending leakages, estimated by officials to be as high as one-third of the program's expenditures.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)

• Objective: Guaranteed Right to Work: MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme, that seeks to provide guaranteed 100 days of wage employment per year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• Features: Legal right to work, a time-bound guarantee of work and unemployment allowance (within 15 days). Decentralized planning – i.e. Gram Sabha recommends work, demand-driven scheme.
• MGNREGA Act, 2005: It specifies a list of works that can be undertaken to generate employment such as water conservation, land development, construction, agriculture.
• Role of MGNREGA in addressing rural distress: Jobs to unskilled/semi-skilled, Reduction in poverty levels, Women labour force participation, Benefits to agri-sector, Rural Development, Creation of rural assets, Reviving MSME sector.
• Challenges: Employment provided remains below guaranteed minimum, Non-payment of unemployment allowance, Low wage rate, Corruption and leakages, Poor quality of assets and inefficient monitoring and maintenance, Regional disparity.