National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Issues, Challenges and Experiences

The current economic growth is seemingly bypassing the 2/3rd of India’s rural population. The high level of poverty in the rural areas is also exacerbating the urban-rural divide. With the agriculture sector experiencing a continuous squeeze and the decline in livelihood opportunities for rural unskilled laborers, policymakers in India face significant challenges. Many policies that have been formulated and implemented to address these issues have not had any significant impact so far. One of the most recent policies aimed directly at improving rural livelihood is National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). If implemented properly, this has the potential of transforming the livelihoods of the rural poor. Introduced in February, 2006, the NREGA guarantees at least 100 days of employment to every household at a minimum daily wage of Rs.60. Each State Government is required, under the Act, to launch a rural employment guarantee scheme within six months of the law coming into force. In areas where the NREGA is being implemented, several critical issues that have limited its impact have been highlighted. Important among these are lack of or low awareness among rural people about the entitlements and basic features of the Act, absence of skilled staff members, limited number of people actually getting jobs (despite having job cards) due to lack of awareness of the work application process and inefficient and ineffective delivery mechanism and monitoring systems. Implementation issues have proven to be a major hindrance to realizing the potential of the NREGA. Against this context, the present book focuses on explaining the basic concept of NREGA, its uniqueness, diverse perspectives, operational dimensions, availability of finance and attitude of bureaucracy. On the basis of micro-level experiences in different states, the book analyzes and critically evaluates the effectiveness of NREGA in securing guarantee of rural employment, eradicating rural poverty, providing rural asset base and checking migration to the urban areas.