The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is a demand-driven, people-centred employment programme, providing livelihood security to rural Indians through a decentralized, participatory governance process based on legal entitlement. It is today the largest social protection net anywhere in the world, with 34 million households having benefited to date. The programme works by offering a legal guarantee of 100 days of employment each year to every adult member of every rural household, at a defined minimum wage that is guaranteed by federal law. Part of the programme’s strength is that it is demand driven — every citizen who asks for a job is given one, within 15 days of submitting an application. The programme is also bottom-up, with planning and implementation carried out at the local level, and full decision-making power delegated to the village assembly level. To date, 1.44 billion person-days of employment have been provided under the programme.

In the process, the programme creates sustainable rural assets and enhances ecological restoration, based on works chosen by rural communities. These works often have spin-off environmental benefits: more than 50 per cent of works chosen relate to water conservation (such as micro-irrigation or renovation of water bodies), while more than 15 per cent of works chosen relate to ecological restoration and local- level forestry activities.

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development. More information is available at: www.nrega.nic.in.