Discuss in groups and answer the following:

Write the objectives and functioning of MGNREGS.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which guarantees 100-day employment to an unemployed person in a year. It has implemented it in 200 of the districts and further will be expanded to 600 districts. In exchange for working under this scheme, the person is paid 150 per day.

Objectives and functioning of MGNREGS

• The MGNREGA provides a legal guarantee for wage employment.

• It is a demand driven programme where stipulation of work is triggered by the demand for work by wage seekers.

• The MGNREGA overcomes problems of targeting through its self-targeting apparatus of beneficiary selection, that is, a large percentage of poorest of the poor and marginalized seek employment under the Scheme.

• Gram Panchayats are to implement at least 50 per cent of the works in terms of cost. This order of devolution of financial resources to Gram Panchayats is exceptional.

• There is also an affiliated discouragement for failing to provide work on time, as the States then bear the cost of the unemployment allowance.