Mgnrega on the Touchstone of Meeting the Specific Needs of Specific Categories: A Study in Sangrur and Barnala Districts of Punjab India

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is one of the most wide ranging flagship programmes of Govt. of India. Conceived in the year 2005 as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and later rechristened as MGNREGA, (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) provides for guaranteed employment for 100 (hundred) days in a year to adult members of a rural household registered under the Act. The primary and foremost objective of the programme is to ensure livelihood to rural masses especially during the lean season of the agricultural cycle when demand for labour is low. This welfare intervention of the Govt. is to mitigate hunger, starvation and deprivation in rural India and to ensure living wages to the adult members of a rural household who come forward to seek unskilled manual labour work as per the provisions of the Act. The prime objective of the present study is to ascertain the efficacy of the MGNREGA in meeting with the specific needs of specific (vulnerable) groups in two districts of Punjab where agriculture is crucial to the economy and life and style of the people.