MGNREGA today and tomorrow

The programme is providing relief today, but how can it ensure the basis of livelihood security in the future?

In these darkest days of Covid-19 — when jobs and economies have collapsed — 56 million households got work in the past three months and these jobs provided relief. This was under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which perhaps is the largest social net scheme in the world. Down To Earth reporters, who travelled to different regions of the country, found there was a surge in employment and in many places, the most skilled and educated turned to this programme. It effectively put a floor to poverty — people got jobs, though unskilled and manual —