National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

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Indian Government enacted the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on August 25, 2005. The NREGA provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage.

1 Overview
2 2006-2007
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Overview

Central Government shall meet the cost towards the payment of wage, 3/4 of material cost and certain percentage of administrative cost. State Government shall meet the cost towards unemployed allowance, 1/4 of material cost and administrative cost of State council.

Adult members of rural households submit their name, age and address with photo to the Gram Panchayat. The Gram panchayat registers households after making enquiry and issues a job card. The job card contains the details of adult member enrolled and his /her photo. Registered person can submit an application for work in writing (for at least fourteen days of continuous work) either to panchayat or to Programme Officer.

The panchayat/programme officer will accept the valid application and issue dated receipt of application, letter providing work will be sent to the applicant and also displayed at panchayat office. The employment will be provided within a radius of 5 km: if it is above 5 km extra wage will be paid.

If employment under the scheme is not provided within fifteen days of receipt of the application daily unemployment allowance will be paid to the applicant.

The scheme starting from February 2, 2006 in 200 districts (out of a total of 593 in the country) will cover all districts in five years. The government announced the addition of another 130 districts in the financial year 2007-8. (See External Links below for a full list of districts covered by the NREGA.)

[edit] 2006-2007

For financial year 2006-2007 budgetary support for NREGA is Rs 11300 crores.

The Congress-led UPA government decided to further extend this scheme across the country at the beginning of the financial year 2008-09, the year the government faces general elections. Though the government has already planned to extend the scheme, country's supreme audit institution, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its performance audit of the implementation of NREGA found out "significant deficiencies" and had even advised the government to plug these shortcomings before extending the scheme further.