Job Cards in Mgnregs Registered: Based On Need or Caution: A Micro Level Analaysis

Abstract

The flagship programme of the Indian Government – MGNREGS – is aiming at enhancing the livelihood security of the rural households through guaranteed 100 days of manual wage employment in a fiscal year to its adult member, who is willing to do manual work. There is a registration process involved to obtain job cards for benefiting from this programme. Even though the process looks like simple steps, it involved time, labour and money of the intended beneficiaries to register and obtain the job cards. Insufficient clarity and understanding from the parts of both the implementers and beneficiaries, more people than the actual beneficiaries have registered and obtained job cards under this scheme, through which the implementers spent lot of time, energy and money on providing the job cards as well as keeping the data base. This article analyses the cause and effect of more number of registration and brings out some suggestions to avoid over burdening with more data and keep the beneficiaries with more clarity on the programme for effective participation.