Performance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Jammu and Kashmir

One of the most important initiatives by the UPA coalition government is the enactment of legal and right based programme called Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The MGNREGA provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year for every rural household who are willing to do unskilled manual work. The programme was launched with an aim of increasing purchasing power capacity of the poor people living in rural India. The State of Jammu and Kashmir is predominately an agrarian state with nearly 75% of the population resides in the rural areas. Out of which 26.14% is living below the poverty line (BPL), which in average terms means that out of every four persons, one belongs to the BPL category. NREGA was extended to three backward districts in Jammu & Kashmir (Doda, Kupwara and Poonch) during the first phase in 2006, and was later extended to two more districts (Anantnag and Jammu) during the second phase and finally to the entire State during the third phase in 2008-09. From the year 2008-09 up to 2013-14, under this scheme, the state has been allotted 3090.47 crore rupees out of which it utilized 2680.49 crore. Besides, the State provided employment to 2744879 households, generated 1349.246 lakh man-days and issued job cards to 5169902 households. In the light of official data collected from the Rural Development Department this paper examines both financial and physical performance of MGNREGA in the State by focussing on the issues like, job cards issued, man-days generated, employment provided to households, works taken up and completed and also the supportive staff engaged. After the proper analysis of the data it was found that performance of the scheme in the State is far from satisfactory and state has to work hard to make the scheme purposeful and goal oriented.