POST 23 
PART-1

Well some hours ago there was a news on Wage revision under MGNREGS scheme so I thought that I must put down something on this.May be good topic for GD's.

Even though many of you must have have heard about this term, let me first put some light on its history.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on 25 August 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for at least one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs 120  per day in 2009 prices. If they fail to do so the govt. has to pay the salary at their homes.

This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around one-third of the stipulated work force is women. The law was initially called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) but was renamed on 2 October 2009.Some Say that it the reason why UPA government came back into power. 

Well to get the provisions under this act you can visit Wikipedia.

But how well the scheme is doing now is the question to be answered.

Here are some findings to prove them.

1) The main purpose of the scheme is to provide livelihood security and create physical assets, while the average wage paid is rising , the benefits to rural households are limited because of employment provided per household in days.

As i say this government has increased the maximum wage of Rs. 214 has been fixed for Haryana, and a minimum of Rs. 135 for the northeastern States. But the facts remains 4 states (AP,MP , RAJ, UP) account for 50% expenditure under the scheme

Bihar,Maharashtra,Up account 46 % of the rural poor , but have utlized only 20 % the MGNREGS Funds.

2) The number of projects launched under the scheme are rising, but the number of project completed fell sharply in 2011/12

3) The expenditure in the scheme has not increased significantly in past 3 years, rather it declined in 2011/12 rs. 39,377 Cr in 2010/11 to 38,035 Cr in 2011/12.

I mean we should give this a thought.