![]() Her neighbour, Palaniammal, aged 62, laments that she did not even get this work because she was old and they did not let her work. But it was very helpful to buy medicines and provisions” says Sheela, 47, a resident of a resettlement colony on the outskirts of Chennai. “We could have been given more work, they only gave us 6 days of work for two months. In other words, the scheme has not been utilised to its full potential and to many of its beneficiaries it has been like a ‘leaky lifeboat’ – that does not let you drown but not entirely above water either However, not all the guarantees provided in the MGNREGS, have been kept in full measure. As all schools have been shut, she has to leave them home when she has to go to work. Her elder daughter had to move from a private to a government school to continue her studies. This work helped make some money but we still ended up having to take a loan to pay for my children’s education expense.”īecause she couldn’t pay the book fees her younger son has not received any books. I used to get Rs 200 per day in the company. I had to rely entirely on the 100 days work scheme. Poongudi, 37 years from Ramayanpatti near Madurai, had got 95 days of work last fiscal from MGNREGS. Even though it had come for criticism by BJP during the UPA rule, the Modi government had to expand the scheme due to its popularity. It was to provide 100 days of ‘guaranteed’ employment to a rural household for minimum wages. The scheme became operational across India by 2008. MGNREGS was devised during the early years of the United Progressive Alliance 1 government from 2004-2009. Her husband and she had got three weeks of work last year under the scheme. We have been able to satisfy the money lenders only by paying them from the wages we got from MGNREGS work” says Nagamma. Neither my husband nor I could go to any work. “We were having great difficulty with money lenders who were demanding at least part payment. Even though the income from this work was limited, it had helped some to stave off hunger and others to escape the clutches of money lenders. With wage work becoming scarce in the rural areas, and many returning without work in cities, the ‘100 days scheme’ has become the primary source of income for many households in Tamil Nadu. Venkat and Mathivanan examine the benefits and pitfalls of the scheme, that needs to be expanded and strengthened across the entire country in this period of great economic distress for both the rural and urban poor. In this two part series for Covid Response Watch T. While it had already proved its value as an anti-poverty measure across rural India, its popularity has only multiplied during the economic depression that followed the Covid lockdowns. Share on WhatsApp Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Telegram Share on Reddit Share on Emailįor the past year and half, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or colloquially called the ‘100 days employment scheme’ has been in great demand in rural Tamil Nadu. ![]()
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