Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for providing wage
employment; National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) for self employment and skill
development; Housing for All: Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Grameen (PMAY-G) for
providing housing to BPL households; Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) for
construction of quality roads; National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) for social pension;
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee RURBAN Mission; Integrated Watershed Management Programme
(IWMP) for improving the productivity of the land.
Rural Employment
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has come a
long way since its inception, and has become a lifeline to millions. The Act aims at enhancing
livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing not less than one
hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose
adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Social inclusion, gender parity, social
security and equitable growth are the founding pillars of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA.
The objectives of the scheme are: providing upto 100 days of unskilled manual work in a
financial year to every household in rural areas as per demand resulting in creation of productive
assets of prescribed quality and durability; enhance livelihood security of the rural poor by
generating wage employment opportunities in works that develop the infrastructure base of the
area concerned; strengthening and securing the livelihood resource base of the rural poor; ensure
empowerment to women; stimulate the local economy by providing a safety net to rural poor by
proactively ensure social inclusion and strengthening grass-root democratic institutions.
The government has been working towards bringing positive changes in the programme
with new initiatives. Several steps have been taken to strengthen the overall implementation of
MGNREGS within the overall framework of MGNREG Act, 2005. Besides ensuring a high
budget allocation of meet the objectives of the Act, measures like electronic fund management
system (eFMS), Aadhaar seeding, geo tagging of assets and strengthening of Social Audit
System are some steps towards bringing in more transparency and accountability in the
programme implementation.
Direct Benefit Transfer
To streamline the fund flow mechanism and bring down delay in payment of wages, the
Ministry of Rural Development has implemented National Electronic Fund Management System
(NeFMS) in 21 states and 1 union territory. This process reduces the delay in allocation of funds
for payment of wages to the states and removes parking of funds at various level. Around 96 per
cent of the wages are being paid electronically into the bank/post office accounts of MGNREGA
workers through Electronic Fund Management System (eFMS).
Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana—National Rural Livelihoods Mission
National Rural Livelihoods Mission, renamed as Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana—National
Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) was launched in 2011. It seeks to reach out to 8-9
crore rural poor households and organize one woman member from each household into affinity
based women SHGs and federations at village level and at higher levels. While doing so, DAY-
NRLM ensures adequate coverage of vulnerable sections of the society such that 50 per cent of
the beneficiaries are members of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, 15 per cent from
minority groups and 3 per cent from persons with disability, while keeping in view the overall