Performance and Impact of MGNREGS

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as a programme whose success will, in itself, pave the way for its downscaling. It is not widely well-known that a large proportion of MGNREGA workers are small and marginal farmers, the productivity of whose lands has been so decimated over the years, that they have been compelled to work under MGNREGA. The real success of MGNREGA will lie in raising the agricultural productivity of millions of farmers who will then be able to return once again to farming and will no longer need to depend on MGNREGA for their survival. Urgent measures are required to convert MGNREGA into a productivity-enhancing instrument that will also allay the falsely perceived conflict between MGNREGA and agriculture – for MGNREGA is the foundation for solving the problems of the poorest farmers of the country.