Context
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and seeks to improve the rural infrastructure, augment land and water resources, and strengthen the livelihood resource base of the rural poor by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work. With a current annual budget of EUR 7.33 billion, MGNREGA includes 127 million households registered as beneficiaries, and provides wage employment to an average of 70 million households in a year.
The programme largely contributes to Natural Resource Management (NRM) by mandating 60 per cent of its total expenditure every year (approximately EUR 4.4 billion for 2018-19) on water harvesting and conservation, afforestation, plantation, land and soil development, and other NRM related works.
The bilateral project ‘Environmental Benefits of MGNREGA’ (MGNREGA-EB) is being implemented since 2013, and supports the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India and three states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
Moreover, the programme aims to enhance livelihood security of the rural households in India by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work.
Objective
Measures to enhance environmental benefits and rural livelihoods of the population through MGNREGA in the select pilot areas have been undertaken. The involvement of women in the planning and implementation phase of MGNREGA activities has increased.
