Contribution of MGNREGS in Eradication of Rural Poverty- An Assessment

Agency (SFDA) in 1971, Food for Work Progamme (FWP) in 1977, National

Rural Employment Programme (NREP) in 1980 and Rural Landless Employment

Guarantee Progamme (RLEGP) in 1983 were implemented. Further, Employment

Assurance Scheme (EAS) a wage employment programme was launched in 1993

with a view to create economic infrastructure and community assets.

During 1989-90 a massive programme of Jawahar Rozgar Yojana was launched

by merging NREP and RLEGP aimed to take to wage employment programme to

each and every village in the country and to empower village level institutions.

Later, it was renamed as Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) from April 1999,

laying a renewed emphasis on the provision of demand driven infrastructure

to meet the requirements of the market-driven economy and create sustained

employment for the rural poor. In spite of implementing this programme in order

to generate employment adequate number of man-day was not generated. In this

backdrop, it was felt that there is need to merge multiple wage programmes into a

single programme by covering food security, additional wage employment, village

infrastructure and community durable assets. Accordingly, a unique new wage

employment programme known as Sampoorna Grameena Rozgar Yojana (SGRY)

was introduced in 2001 by merging JGSY and EAS.

Self-employment Programmes

The Swanjayanti Gram SwarozgarYojana (SGSY) is a major on-going programme

for the self-employment of the poor. The programme was started from 1-4-1999

after restructuring and merging the erstwhile Integrated Rural Development

Programme (IRDP) which was initially started in 1976 in 20 selected districts of

the country with an aim to provide subsidized credit to the rural poor for taking

up self employment micro enterprise. The programme was reviewed in 1978-79

to integrate the methodology and approach of the three major ongoing special

programmes of SFDA, Command Area Development Programme(CADP) and

Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP). The underlying contents of these three

major programmes were integrated into a new programme of IRDP and taken up

in 2300 blocks of the country in 1978-79 and it was extended to all the blocks in

the country with effect from 2 nd October 1980. Since then IRDP continues to be a

major instrument of poverty alleviation in the rural areas. Training of Rural Youth

for self Employment(TRYSEM) is another self employment scheme which aims

to import technical skill to the rural youth from the families below the poverty line

to enable them to take up self employment activities. To enable the rural artisans

to enhance the quality of their products increase their production, productivity

efficiency and income to reduce their drudgery a special scheme for supply of

Improved Tool-Kits (SITRA) was introduced as sub-scheme of IRDP in 1992.

Development of women and children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) was introduced

in 1982 as a component of IRDP for providing assistance to take up income

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