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National Rural Employment Guarantee Act- NREGA

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Introduction

An act to provide for enhancement of livelihood security of households in rural areas to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment every financial year to its beneficiaries

Promises

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Employer of Last Resort

Ideal

example of ELR net for the poor

Safety Its

objective is to ensure that any person who is both able and willing to work, finds public employment at a basic wage

not an Emergency policy or a substitute for private sector employment but is a complement to 4/13/12

Is

Unemployment in India
The

number of unemployed is up almost 35 million over the last decade- ILO(2007) of the rural labour force in India is different from that in developed economies has been in operation in 330 districts of India

Nature

NREGA

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Trends in Rural Employment in India

Employment Official Very

guarantee different from that of developed countries rates tend to be low as it is a rare luxury diverse- differs widely according to region, age, gender, occupational categories etc.

rates differ greatly between genders 4/13/12

Unemployment

Trends (contd.)
Degree During

of unemployment differs in terms of occupation 2005-2006, in rural India, more than half of the workers were self employed- 57% among males and 62% among females of the self employment was agriculture

Much

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Effective Implementation of NREGA

It

needs to take into account the last proportion of under employed and also its seasonal nature to the dependence on Agriculture in the rural scenario, it needs to be included in the scheme employment data shows an increased participation by women but is part time in nature

Due

Existing

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To ensure success
NREGA

should be aligned with:

The agricultural seasonality The interests of small and marginal

farmers

Interests of female workers and their

specific needs

Illiteracy of the targeted beneficiaries

which call for ease of application

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Differential performance of NREGA

Variation Reason Studies

across States

for variation uncertain

indicate that Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are better performing

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Macroeconomic Significance of NREGA

The Is

most ambitious employment programme in history very important in these times of recession crore rural households have been provided employment (2009) two challenges:
Addressing unemployment challenge in

3.04

Faces

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rural areas

Implications of NREGA
The

Act gives to Rural people:

Right to apply and demand work Transparency in functioning Right to choose work Promise of a proper grievance redressal

mechanism

Enabled enforcement of law from

outside, initiated by citizens and citizen groups

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NREGA: Bottlenecks
Applying

for work is fraught with

problems
Levels

of transparency not complete

Government Wages No
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still not geared to allow people to choose work do not come on time to banks or post offices facility for social audit

Implementation challenges of NREGA

Role

of Gram Panchayats: Registration and issuing of job cards, receiving demand fir work, allocating work, selection of works, implementation and supervision, payment of wages, opening of accounts of capacity to perform the tasks driven: Failure to capture

Lack
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Demand

demand

Conclusion
Future

of NREGA depends on:

Strengthening the work application

process

Working out a wage policy Ensuring participation of women Ensuring timely wage payment Effective grievance redressal system Incentivising bureaucracy to take up
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NREGA schemes

Thank you

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