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April 2008
From April 1 2008 the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been extended to all 604 districts of the country. The guarantee of 100 days of manual works now extends to 45 million rural households of India. But with this it also puts a challenge: how to make the Act work for the entire rural areas of the country.
Over the last two years that it has been in existence, NREGA has already created half-a-million assets and provided jobs to around three per cent of India’s population. We term the Act as the world’s largest ecological regeneration programme given its potential to do so.
The Natural Resource Management and Livelihood unit (NRML) released its assessment of two years of the Act on March 31 2008. The study looks at the Act’s implementation across 9 states and 12 districts.
The assessment argues that the Act has huge potential for regenerating village economy in India, but only if its focus remains on the creation of productive assets.
This issue of E-Pov revolves around the CSE assessment of NREGA. It examines the implementation of NREGA, its development impacts on local economy and stumbling blocks in realizing the Act’s development potential.
This edition of E-pov also includes a dossier on the state of natural resources in the 200 districts of NREGA and the ranking of 447 backward districts by the Planning Commission of India.
For comments,
email: e-pov@cseindia.org
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