MGNREGA: Women's Participation and its Impact

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA),2005, was notified on 7 September 2005. Launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) legally enshrines the ―right to work‖ and ensures livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. An important objective of MGNREGA has been to encourage women‘s effective participation, both as workers and as administrators. For instance, according to MGNREGA guidelines, at least one-third of the beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested for work under the programme. MGNREGA was devised as a public work programme with a rights based approach to development, providing income security through guaranteed wage employment. The Purpose of this paper is to study of MGNREGA programme and to present an overview of woman participation and its impact on MGNREGA.