Flagship Programme MNREGA To Get A New Name, Proposal Now With Cabinet

A proposal has been submitted to the Cabinet to change the name of the erstwhile UPA government's flagship MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). The Central government made the decision today to change its name to Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana.

Preparations are on to implement the Pujya Bapu Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is expected to guarantee 125 days of employment per year for the poor living in rural areas.

Preparations are in progress to allocate more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore for this.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a labor law and social security measure that aims to guarantee "right to employment". It provides at least 100 days of guaranteed unskilled manual labour to rural people. 

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a labor law and social security measure that aims to guarantee "right to employment". It provides at least 100 days of guaranteed unskilled manual labour to rural people. 

Currently, there are 154 million people working under the scheme. Around one-third of the beneficiaries are women.   

The world's largest work guarantee programme, launched by the Manmohan Singh government and initially called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, was re-named after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009.

As a part of decentralisation aimed at by the Centre, the scheme involved the Panchayati Raj, which had to guarantee 50 per cent of the work. Its most crucial aspect is that in case work cannot be found within 15 days of application by an individual, an unemployment allowance is provided.