India 2018

Rural and Urban Development 463
consists of two departments, namely, Department of Rural Development and
Department of Land Resources.
Major Programmes for Rural Development
The following major programmes are being operated by the Ministry of Rural
Development:
Rural Employment
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
has come a long way since its inception, and has become a lifeline to millions.
The Act aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of
the country by providing not less than one hundred days of guaranteed wage
employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members
volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Social inclusion, gender parity, social
security and equitable growth are the founding pillars of Mahatma Gandhi
NREGA.
The objectives of the scheme are: providing upto 100 days of unskilled
manual work in a financial year to every household in rural areas as per demand
resulting in creation of productive assets of prescribed quality and durability;
enhance livelihood security of the rural poor by generating wage employment
opportunities in works that develop the infrastructure base of the area
concerned; strengthening and securing the livelihood resource base of the rural
poor; ensure empowerment to women; stimulate the local economy by
providing a safety net to rural poor by proactively ensure social inclusion and
strengthening grass-root democratic institutions.
The government has been working towards bringing positive changes in
the programme with new initiatives. Several steps have been taken to strengthen
the overall implementation of MGNREGS within the overall framework of
MGNREG Act, 2005. Besides ensuring a high budget allocation of meet the
objectives of the Act, measures like electronic fund management system (eFMS),
Aadhaar seeding, geo tagging of assets and strengthening of Social Audit
System are some steps towards bringing in more transparency and
accountability in the programme implementation.
Direct Benefit Transfer
To streamline the fund flow mechanism and bring down delay in payment of
wages, the Ministry of Rural Development has implemented National
Electronic Fund Management System (NeFMS) in 21 states and 1 union territory.
This process reduces the delay in allocation of funds for payment of wages to
the states and removes parking of funds at various level. Around 96 per cent
of the wages are being paid electronically into the bank/post office accounts
of MGNREGA workers through Electronic Fund Management System (eFMS).
9.46 crore active workers have their Aadhaar numbers seeded in NREGASoft-
MIS so far, while the number was merely 76 lakh in January, 2014. As of now,