-Firstpost.com Have women living in rural India benefitted from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGA)? MNREGA was introduced in 2006 and has emerged as the largest programme in the world for providing employment to the rural poor. While there is no doubt that MNREGA in a short span of ten years did help generate 20 billion person-days of employment benefitting 276 million workers from which more than half were women....

-Hindustan Times Women don’t have enough power within households to insist that the cash provided be used for nutritional needs. The THR system is a way to ensure that they at least get some essential nutrition. The decision to do away with take-home rations (THR) in aanganwadis for infants under three and pregnant and lactating mothers, and to replace the scheme with cash transfers is not a good idea. The initial impetus...

-Press release from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha For the past five days, hundreds of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers and their supporters from across the country have gathered at Jantar Mantar to demand the implementation of the employment guarantee act in letter and spirit. They are demanding a substantial increase in the NREGA wages, timely payment of wages, implementation of local plans, expansion of existing entitlements and adequate budget for...

-The Hindu Business Line Concerns flagged over delay in wages, absence of grievance redressal New Delhi: Citing cases of Aadhaar linkage with wrong accounts, delayed and inadequate wages, especially to thousands of women, preparation of muster rolls in English and centralisation of the programme, workers and organisations from across the country are on dharna in Delhi to reaffirm their “legal entitlements’ under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). “Even based...

  Protesting social activists at Jantar Mantar (Delhi), who are fighting for better working conditions of MGNREGA workers, have recently shot off two demand letters – one addressed to the Finance Minister of India and the other to the Secretary of Department of Rural Development at the MoRD. The letter addressed to the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley, dated 13 September, 2017, has been signed by eminent activists including Nikhil Dey,...