The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (No 42), also known as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act", and abbreviated to MGNREGA, is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work' and ensure livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The UPA Government had planned to increase the number of working days from 100 to 150 before the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections in the country but failed. The statute is hailed by the government as "the largest and most ambitious social security and public works programme in the world". The more comprehensive survey of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, a ‘Supreme Audit Institution’ defined in Article 148 of the Constitution of India, reports serious lapses in implementation of the act.

Targeting poverty through employment generation using rural works has had a long history in India that began in the 1960s. After the first three decades of experimentation, the government launched major schemes like Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, Employment Assurance Scheme, Food for Work Programme, Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana and Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana that were forerunners to Mahatma Gandhi NREGA. The theme of government approach had been to merge old schemes to introduce new ones while retaining the basic objective of providing additional wage employment involving unskilled manual work and also to create durable assets. The major responsibility of implementation was also gradually transferred to the Panchayati Raj Institutions. Unlike its precursors, the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA guaranteed employment as a legal right. However, the problem areas are still the same as they were in the 1960s. The most significant ones are: lack of public awareness, mismanagement and above all mass corruption.

The statement of the law provides adequate safeguards to promote its effective management and implementation. The act explicitly mentions the principles and agencies for implementation, list of allowed works, financing pattern, monitoring and evaluation, and most importantly the detailed measures to ensure transparency and accountability. Further the provisions of the law adhere to the principles enunciated in the Constitution of India.

The comprehensive assessment of the performance of the law by the constitutional auditor revealed serious lapses arising mainly due to lack of public awareness, mismanagement and institutional incapacity. The CAG also suggests a list of recommendations to the government for corrective measures. The government, however, had also released a collection of reportedly independent researches evaluating the functioning of the act whose results significantly differed from the CAG report. Meanwhile, the social audits in two Indian states highlight the potential of the law if implemented effectively.