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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

How has NREGA fared during lockdown? -Vani Viswanathan, Sultan Ahmad and Aaditeshwar Seth

-IDROnline.org

Often the sole source of income for rural households, NREGA has been plagued with issues during the pandemic. Insights from the ground explain why.

During the lockdown, an estimated 20 to 30 million migrant workers returned home, out of work and out of money. Some of them tried helping their families with farming and some even used the skills they had developed to set up new enterprises. But most remained jobless. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was set up for conditions like these: To offer employment and a fallback option to those who need it. It is often the sole income source for many rural households, pandemic or not.

The reality of NREGA on the ground

At the start of the lockdown, the government anticipated a loss of jobs and an increase in demand for employment. To this effect, they announced that NREGA works could start by April 20th, 2020. Between April and September, 8.3 million new NREGA job cards were issued, the highest annual increase in seven years. A NREGA tracker from People’s Action of Employment Guarantee (PAEG), a group of activists, academics, and civil society members, shows that 0.2 million households had already completed the 100 days of employment that NREGA guarantees for the entire year, by July.

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