Rajasthan bags four prizes for job guarantee scheme

News:Rajasthan has bagged four prizes for its performance under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme(MGNREGA).

Facts:

About the awards:

• The prizes were given to the Zila Parishad officials and panchayat representatives of Kota, Dungarpur, Bhilwara and Jaisalmer districts.
• The achievements of the Panchayati Raj bodies in the NREGA works included construction of watershed structures, strengthening of rural infrastructure and geotagging of the MGNREGA works.

About MGNREGA:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an employment guarantee actIt was introduced in 2005 through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,2005.
• The Act aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year .
• It will be provided to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• Ministry of Rural Development (MRD),Government of India in association with state governments monitors the implementation of the scheme.

Features of the Act:

• MGNREGA is implemented mainly by Gram Panchayats(GPs).Labour intensive tasks like creating infrastructure for water harvesting, drought relief and flood control are preferred.
• The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) has also enshrined social audits in the Act. 
• A social audit is an accountability tool that measures, evaluates, identifies gaps in service delivery and elicits promises to rectify these gaps with the direct participation of intended beneficiaries in this process.

MGNREGA and Constitution:

• The Act aims to follow the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Part IV of the Constitution of India.
• Article 41 of  the Constitution provides that the State shall within the limits of its economic capacity and development make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement and in other cases of undeserved want.
• Article 40 mandates the State to organise village Panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.Hence,conferring the primary responsibility of implementation on Gram Panchayats,the Act adheres to this constitutional principle.
• Also,the process of decentralization initiated by 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India that granted constitutional status to the Panchayats is further reinforced by the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA that endowed these rural self-government institutions with authority to implement the law.