MBA aspirants must be updated with General Awareness on current topics. General awareness topics with analytically drawn conclusions will benefit you in Essay writing / GD & PI. Today, you will read General Awareness Topic:
MGNREGA is a Mirage
MGNREGA was an ambitious set up to improve the declining condition of the rural economy. While at one hand, the urban part of the country is s prospering, the rural parts of the country are facing unconditional poverty. With the change in the leadership of the country in the year 2004, under the make employment scheme, Congress put up the plan of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in front of a panel of leaders. This act did not gain support from the various members of the panel till late 2006.
This act was passed with the aim of counter attacking poverty which seems to have filled in the lands of India. Every year, many farmers struck badly with poverty and debt, commit suicide leaving behind their family in a helpless state. With MGNREGA, the government aimed to reduce these numbers.
Before moving on to the current scenario, it is very important to understand the issues this act was empowered to handle. This act was drafted with the help of several economists and activists who belonged to grassroot levels. The law was basically established to help the underprivileged citizens of India, the ones who are unemployed or do not have enough funds.
These underprivileged are those citizens who are buried under debt and have a family that needs looking after. Through this act, the government offers employment to these people within a period of 100 days.
The employment privilege is given to one member in one family. The daily wages that can be earned through this scheme was around 100 rupees. With this act, there was complete transparency.
An audit was conducted regularly to measure the accountability of this scheme. In case, the local authorities were not able to provide employment, they had to pay 25 rupees as unemployment allowance to the government.
Practically everything was good about the scheme. Around 4.4 Million people were employed in this scheme. Approximately 784 billion rupees were released by the government to serve close to 619 districts in India. In the year 2004, when the new leadership was announced, the number of people under poverty level was 456 million.
Post the implementation of this scheme, the number of people living under poverty level has increased to 488 million. Where there was a promise made to decrease the level of poverty, more and more people are growing to be poor.
It was around 2009, post the re-election, that the country observed a declining effect in the policies of MGNREGA. Most farmers who were granted jobs could not manage to earn even the sum of their eight day’s salary in an entire year. In fact, the social welfare elements are being merged with other government activation programmes thus ruining the effects of MGNREGA.
Corruption is on a high in the MGNREGA scheme. Fake vouchers, fake employment books etc. are being created. Even after giving the needy their job account number and other details, this programme fails to provide them job. There is an increasing number of people who are growing unemployed each day.
The caste based discrimination is affecting the entire lot of people who are in dire need of a job. The entire purpose of the scheme has been ruined with the increasing number of poor people. It indeed feels like a mirage
