Revue des sciences politiques et des affaires publiques
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Millennium Development Goals through MNREGA

Praveen Kumar Gupt

Almost all discussion on development issues all over the world are now centered around the MDG’s. It is most ambitious dream put forward by the United Nations Organization a decade ago. Since its introduction in September 2000, all the 192 countries which agreed to work hard to materialize all the MDG’s by 2015, began to introduced different types of development programmes. India too followed suit. India is on course to move forward to Inclusive Growth and achieve the targets of millennium development goals which has accelerated its pace of poverty alleviation strategies by mobilizing greater budget resources, creating time frames for quantifiable deliverables, linking, with global frameworks of action. Major strides have been made under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), is landmark legislation in India, which was enacted after a successful struggle for employment guarantee legislation. It has a direct connection with the efforts to accelerate the achievement of the MDGs and Inclusive Growth in India; efforts are on towards total eradication of poverty by 2015. MNREGA, with its Rights Based framework, is a paradigm shift from all other development programmes that were traditionally supply led. Centrally funded entirely through domestic resources, the implementation of this law is supported by a budget based on demand for employment. Apart from providing livelihood to millions of households, over the last six years, the Act has become a significant vehicle for strengthening grass root level democratic processes and regeneration of India’s depleting natural resource base. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the impact MNREGA on the welfare of poor women in rural India. Moreover, it also deals with the analysis of the performance of MNREGA in poverty alleviation and generating employment opportunities to the rural poor. MNREGA has also been able to contribute to ecological restoration through its design. Hence, the present study discusses seriously the impact of MNREGA on the employment scenario, ecological regeneration and poverty in rural areas; which are the integral parts of MDG’s. The study is focused on the women workers of MNREGA. Not only that the paper discussed the major visible and invisible impacts of MNREGA on poor women in rural areas.