Objective of Mgnrega Act

Objectives of the Act

The basic objective of the Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment on demand. This work guarantee can also serve other objectives: generating productive assets, protecting the environment, rural empowerment of women, reducing rural-urban migration and fostering social equity, development initiative, public investments for creation of durable assets, decentralized implementation, demand driven and so on.

This programme is different from all other such schemes that have been implemented in the country so far. A few non-negotiable features of this scheme gives a hope that this could be implemented plugging the loopholes for leakage of government money. This is a demand based programme where there is no limitation of the funds for the implementation. Any individual from the rural household can register under this act irrespective of the economic status of the family. Participatory Planning and Decentralized Implementation are the special features of the Act. It is mandatory to implement at least 50 per cent of the works by the Gram Panchayat (the units of local self government at the village).

The first three years of the programme have also shown that MGNREGA suffers from many drawbacks leakages and delays in wage payments, non-payment of statutory minimum wages, work only for an average of 50 days per annum as against the promised 100 days, fudged muster rolls, few durable assets and even fewer sustainable livelihoods. The MGNREGA is India’s first law to codify development rights in a legal framework, and like the RTI, it has begun to set an example in a global context. Apart from the law, and a set of guidelines, there is a strong and immediate need to formulate rules to operationalise provisions in the Act; which includes guaranteeing grievance redressal in seven days, social audit twice a year, and mandatory transparency and proactive disclosure....