The Act guarantees that state govts will set up schemes to provide no less than 100 days of #employment in one financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual #work.
The law also states that the government may make provisions for work over and above the 100-day minimum. If the government is unable to provide work, it must ensure #unemployment#compensation.
Anyone above the age of 18 in a notified rural area can seek work. However, only one person per household is entitled to employment. #MGNREGA guarantees “unskilled manual work” or any physical work that an adult is capable of doing without special #skill or #training.
Every person will receive #wages for each day of work. Payments will be made on a weekly or, at the latest, fortnightly basis. While the central govt can specify a #wage rate, the standard is the minimum wage for #agricultural#labourers fixed under the #MinimumWages Act, 1948.
Importantly, MGNREGA specifies that the #wages earned cannot be less than Rs. 60 per day.
#MGNREGA directs that if an eligible person is not given work within 15 days of applying for it, the govt. must provide him/her with a daily #unemployment allowance at a rate prescribed by the state government. However, this rate can't be less than the min specified by the law.
Schedule 2 lays out the minimum facilities that must be provided to labourers. These facilities include crèches and drinking water. The schedule also mandates the #welfare of #workers (in particular, compensation for injury) as well as grievance redressal mechanisms.
Gram #panchayats are the primary implementation agencies for #MGNREGA; they plan & implement the employment schemes. The gram panchayat is required to provide work within 15 days of the application failing which an #unemployment#allowance must be given to the applicant.
Under this Act,the central govt has set up the National Employment Guarantee Fund to cover expenses incurred on implementing the #law & sanctioning #grants to states and UTs. In turn, state govts have set up State Employment Guarantee Funds to implement the #employment schemes.
The Act’s implementation is reviewed and monitored by the Central Employment Guarantee Council at the central level and State Employment Guarantee Councils in all the states.
‘Who knew the lack of rain could kill my art?’ (a thread)
Three decades ago, no one wanted to teach a young Sanjay Kamble how to work with bamboo.
Today, when he wants to teach everyone his dying craft, no one wants to learn.
“It’s ironic how times have changed,” the 50-year-old says.
With the bamboo that grows in his one-acre field, Kamble mainly crafts irlas – a kind of raincoat used by paddy farmers in this region in western Maharashtra.
“My lungs feel like stone. I can barely walk,” says Manik Sardar.
In November, 2022, the 55-year-old was diagnosed with silicosis – an incurable pulmonary disease. “I have no interest in the upcoming elections,” he continues,
“I am only worried about my family’s condition.”
Naba Kumar Mandal is also a patient of silicosis. He adds, “elections are about false promises. For us, voting is a routine task. No matter who comes to power, things will not change for us.”
“I reach here by 8:45 a.m. and we start work by nine. By the time I am home, it is 7-7:30 in the evening,” says Madan Pal. ‘Here,’ is the tiny carrom board factory in Suraj Kund Sports Colony in Meerut city, Uttar Pradesh.
Karan, 32, who has been working here for 10 years, inspects each stick of wood and segregates those that are damaged and will be returned.
“It is not difficult to make a board, but it is not easy to make the coins glide on the playing surface.”
Lenindhasan, or Lenin– as he is called – and his friends, are trying to replace modern rice varieties and resist mono-cropping. Their plan is to restore lost diversity. And to germinate a rice revolution.
It's a different kind of revolution, led by another kind of Lenin.
Lenin cultivates 30 varieties of rice. He sells another 15 raised by fellow farmers. And he conserves 80 types of paddy seeds. All this, in his family’s six-acre farm in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvanamalai district.
It seems as if he’s been farming and selling paddy for decades. But it’s only been six years.
Before he became a farmer, Lenin was a corporate employee in Chennai, with two degrees and a good salary.
Life has only become harder in the last 10 years (A thread)
India's poorest homes continue to rely on minor forest produce like mahua and tendu leaves, along with the assured Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) programme.
As they prepare for voting today in the General Elections 2024, Adivasi villagers here in Arattondi village say their lives have only become harder in the last 10 years...