Kalaignar Urban Development Scheme

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 

• It is a poverty alleviation programme of the Government of India, which provides the legal Right to Work in exchange for money to the citizens of the country.
• It provides at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• Features
  • Legal Right to Work: The Act provides a legal right to employment for adult members of rural households.
    • At least one-third of beneficiaries have to be women. Wages must be paid according to the wages specified for agricultural labourers in the state under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

• Time-Bound Guarantee of Work: Employment must be provided within 15 days of being demanded to fail which an ‘unemployment allowance’ must be given.
• Decentralised Planning: Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) are primarily responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of the works that are undertaken.
  • Gram Sabhas must recommend the works that are to be undertaken and at least 50 per cent of the works must be executed by them.

• Transparency and Accountability: There are provisions for proactive disclosure through wall writings, Citizen Information Boards, Management Information Systems and social audits (conducted by Gram Sabhas).
• Funding: It is shared between the Centre and the States.
  • The Central Government bears 100 per cent of the cost of unskilled labour, 75 per cent of the cost of semi-skilled and skilled labour, 75 per cent of the cost of materials and 6 per cent of the administrative costs.

• Latest Budgetary Allocations: In the Union Budget 2021-22, the government allocated Rs. 73,000 crore for the MGNREGA.
  • It is nearly 34.5 per cent lower than the 2020s revised estimates of Rs. 1.11 lakh crore. The budget estimates were around Rs. 60,000 crore but had to be enhanced as the national lockdown happened.
  • This year’s budget was kept low assuming that the economic recovery would alleviate the need for such spending.

• Significance
  • It is a social security scheme to generate employment for the rural poor and ensure livelihood for people in rural areas.
  • The scheme sees large scale participation of women, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other traditionally marginalised sections of society.
  • It also provides rural India with vital safety, the absence of which could push labourers into distress and poverty, something which data on the latest farm and farm labourers suicides reflects.
  • It has also strengthened local self-governance by involving PRIs in the planning and monitoring of the scheme.