Centre forms panel to revamp MGNREGA job guarantee scheme

Tags: committee

The central government has constituted a committee to improve the MNREGA scheme. This committee will examine the efficacy of MGNREGA as a means of poverty alleviation.

Important facts

• The first meeting of this committee, headed by former Rural Development Secretary Amarjit Sinha, was held on November 21. 

• It has been given three months to give its suggestions.

• The committee has been asked to review the work demand in MGNREGA, spending patterns, variation in demand across states and the incremental cost of providing employment since inception of the scheme.

• Also, this committee will suggest what changes can be made to make this scheme more effective.

• The committee will also have to submit recommendations for better implementation of the scheme in poor areas.

• This scheme was brought as a means of poverty alleviation in rural areas, but states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the level of poverty is high, have not been able to get the proper benefits of this scheme.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme

• MNREGA Act was passed by the Indian Parliament on 23rd August 2005 but it came into force on February 6, 2006.  

• On 2nd October 2009 an amendment was made in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, to change the nomenclature of the Act from NREGA to MGNREGA

• The mandate of the MGNREGA is to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. 

• The scheme is under the administrative control of the Union Ministry of  Rural Development.

Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj - Giriraj Singh