41,000 Households Got Employment Under MGNREGS Across Assam In Last 3 Fiscals

GUWAHATI: Altogether 41,000 households got gainful employment under MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) across Assam during the last three fiscals (2016-2017-18, and 2018-19). While 11,000 households were employed during 2016-17 and also during 2017-18; a total of 19,000 households were given employment under this scheme in 2018-19. This was revealed in a reply given by Union Minister of Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Minister Naba Kumar Doley heads the Panchayat and Rural Development department that looks after the implementation of this scheme at the State level.

According to the data revealed in the Parliament, the three north-eastern States of Tripura, Mizoram, and Meghalaya registered much better profiles compared to Assam during 2016-17. While Tripura provided employment to 1.16 lakh households during this financial year; Meghalaya gave employment to 87,000; and Mizoram to 57,000 households. On the other hand, during 2017-18, Meghalaya gave employment to 1.15 lakh households under the scheme. During 2018-19 also, Meghalaya topped the chart among the north-eastern States by providing MGNREGS employment to 1.61 lakh households.

Implemented under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act, 2005), it was introduced by the UPA government. The successive NDA governments have also adopted this scheme that provides at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. In other words, when there is no better employment opportunity, this scheme provides for livelihood security or a fall-back livelihood option for the rural households. It is basically a demand-driven programme. The demand for work is influenced by various factors such as rainfall, availability of alternative and remunerative employment opportunities outside MGNREGS.

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