Why mgnrega has statutory backing?

Respected Sir,

Kindly Go through Article To get an insight knowledge of the Scheme since the Scheme has got such wide objectives as compared to a normal Scheme hence there was a requirement felt to make it an act.

Mahatma Gandhi NREGA was enacted on 7 September 2005 as “An Act to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household.” The instrument of employment are works listed under the Act Schedule I in order of priority and include (i) water conservation and water harvesting; (ii) drought proofi ng (including afforestation and tree plantation); (iii) irrigation canals including micro and minor irrigation works; (iv) provision of irrigation facility, horticulture plantation and land development facilities to land owned by households belonging to the Schedule Castes (SCs) and Schedule Tribes (STs) or below poverty line (BPL) families or to the benefi ciaries of land reforms or to the benefi ciaries under the Indira Awas Yojana of GoI or that of the small farmers or marginal farmers as defi ned in the Agriculture Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008; (v) renovation of traditional water bodies including desilting of tanks; (vi) land development; (vii) fl ood control and protection works including drainage in water logged areas; (viii) rural connectivity to provide all-weather access, and (ix) any other work which may be notifi ed by the central government in consultation with the state government. Recently, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has notified the construction of village and block level knowledge centres (Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendras) as permissible work. The Act was implemented in a phased manner with 200 districts in the first phase being notified on 2 February 2006, followed by another 130 from April 2007, and in the remaining districts with effect from 1 April 2008. The Act is now effective in the rural areas of the entire country, covering 619 districts. The phased implementation was based on a criterion of backwardness formulated by the Planning Commission9, GoI that used a mix of demographic, social and economic indices. These included the percentage of ST and SC population, the agricultural productivity of the district and the prevalent notified minimum wages for agricultural labourers in the state. This ranking was used to select 150 districts for the National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP)10 introduced in 2004. These districts were part of the first phase of 200 districts notified under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA. The districts taken up in the first phase were selected, not serially, but state-wise so that all states were represented. Signifi cant in this identification is that the districts selected in the first phase were dominantly tribal, low productivity districts. Almost 50 per cent of the Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP)11 districts were included indicating that the perception of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA was clearly oriented towards rain-fed areas as the geography of poverty, and the socio-economically weak groups as the sociology of poverty.

I hope the answer solves your query.

Regards,

Siddhartha Kundoo

How are you concerned with the query which otherwise can be searched online?