National rural employment scheme is a step in right direction for rural development
The Right Step
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act aims to guarantee the “Right to Work” to unskilled people in rural areas of India. The act promises at least one hundred days of paid labour to registered villagers. The category of work allotted is “Unskilled labour”. It seems to be a right step towards rural development.
The projects in which these people work are construction based. New wells are dug, better roads are laid upon their earthen predecessors, small houses are built upon empty unused lands and stronger bridges are made to connect neighbouring villages. This sort of work not only benefits the labourers’ purse but also helps the village society to grow in general.
The act gives work to poor landless people. More so, the act is responsible for providing employment to many women. As a result of this act, the people have become more independent and are more informed about their rights and their surroundings. Many pending debts have been settled from the wages received and the standard of livelihood has bettered since the inception of this act. The village life has become more peaceful than before. Several new options of investment and expenditure have surfaced in villages and more people are using these. If this is not development in its entirety, then what is?
But, the picture is not as clean as it may seem; what we see is never absolutely true. The country has indeed seen a lot of rural development, but not everywhere.
Sadly, in some villages of Tamil Nadu, the villagers have complained about the fact that the scheme has not been implemented in their village, even though it is a national scheme. Lacking alternatives, they have taken to migrating to the nearby villages where work is available. This unnecessary human migration has resulted in an increase of competition for limited work in those villages. This has angered the natives of those villages towards their fellow villagers and the government.
There have been
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act aims to guarantee the “Right to Work” to unskilled people in rural areas of India. The act promises at least one hundred days of paid labour to registered villagers. The category of work allotted is “Unskilled labour”. It seems to be a right step towards rural development.
The projects in which these people work are construction based. New wells are dug, better roads are laid upon their earthen predecessors, small houses are built upon empty unused lands and stronger bridges are made to connect neighbouring villages. This sort of work not only benefits the labourers’ purse but also helps the village society to grow in general.
The act gives work to poor landless people. More so, the act is responsible for providing employment to many women. As a result of this act, the people have become more independent and are more informed about their rights and their surroundings. Many pending debts have been settled from the wages received and the standard of livelihood has bettered since the inception of this act. The village life has become more peaceful than before. Several new options of investment and expenditure have surfaced in villages and more people are using these. If this is not development in its entirety, then what is?
But, the picture is not as clean as it may seem; what we see is never absolutely true. The country has indeed seen a lot of rural development, but not everywhere.
Sadly, in some villages of Tamil Nadu, the villagers have complained about the fact that the scheme has not been implemented in their village, even though it is a national scheme. Lacking alternatives, they have taken to migrating to the nearby villages where work is available. This unnecessary human migration has resulted in an increase of competition for limited work in those villages. This has angered the natives of those villages towards their fellow villagers and the government.
There have been