A critical Appraisal.
Dr. M.D.Somani,
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, (NREGA) was notified on September 7, 2005 by Government of India with the objective to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. It was intended to provide employment to the vulnerable groups at a time when other employment alternatives are scarce or inadequate for sustainable development of agricultural economy.
The Act was notified in 200 districts in the first phase with effect from February 2nd 2006 and extended to additional 130 districts in the financial year 2007-2008 (113 districts were notified with effect from April 1st 2007, and 17 districts in UP were notified with effect from May 15th 2007). The remaining districts were notified under the NREGA with effect from April 1, 2008. Thus NREGA covers the entire country with the exception of districts that have a 100% urban population
Key Stakeholders of NREGA comprises of Wage seekers, Gram Sabha, Panchayati Raj Institutions (specially the gram panchayat), Programme Officer at the block level, District Programme Coordinator, State Government & Ministry of Rural Development.
During the first six months of the financial year 2011-12 as per reports available with the website of NREGA 31448266 households have demanded employment & 30848011 have been provided the employment. The average person-days per household comes to 27.9 days. 567485 households got 100 days employment under the scheme. (Table-1)
The table-2 reflects the details about assets created under the scheme. It give the details of the tasks which was approved but not in progress, task taken up & task completed.
Table -3 shows the details about the funds released by the government, it is clear from the table that there is no shortage of