Discuss the role of wage employment in poverty alleviation and how is MGNREGA different from it.

The Indian state is a welfare state as enjoined in the Directive Principles of State Policy. Thus, it is the duty of state to alleviate poverty, which stands at 21% as per Suresh Tendulkar committee report.

• While Universal Basic Income is one of the solutions to address the issue of poverty; another approach is to use vast labour potential of the country to build durable community assets.
• Here enters MGNREGA enacted in 2005, which functions as a ‘right-based’ approach to 100 days of manual unskilled labour for every rural family.

Wage Employment and its role in poverty alleviation:

• Consistent with philosophies of hard work.
• Durable & useful asset for community is made.
• Data collected can be used in other schemes.
• Source of income for the poor.
• Up-skilling of workers possible.
• IEC & financial inclusion also possible.
• Decreases unemployment.
• Prevents moral hazard and a fatalistic attitude.

How MGNREGA is different:

• Made a legal-right & if not fulfilled, can claim a pension from state.
• Focus on audits by the stake holders.
• ICT & e-governance enabled by e-MGNREGA & Jan-Samadhan app.
• Wages via DBT to the beneficiary directly.
• Beneficiaries are identified by the socio-economic factors & assets tailor made to community needs.
• Financial inclusion of workers by Insurance, Jan-Dhan Yojana.
• GIS tagging of assets.
• Up-skilling of workers to reduce future dependence on MGNREGA & also focus on horticulture, vocational, etc.

Way Forward:

Thus, MGNREGA is a lifeline of the Indian workers & must be made better.