One hundred days of guaranteed wage employment and a job card in fifteen days

Background

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme gives every rural household at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year. The work offered is unskilled manual work, and it is open to any adult member of the household who volunteers for it. The scheme is meant as a fall-back for a rural household when no better work is available. It is demand driven, so the number of registered workers moves up and down from one year to the next. Under Para 2 of Schedule II of the Act, a Gram Panchayat must make the enquiry it thinks fit and then issue a job card within fifteen days of the application. The Ministry of Rural Development asks all States and UTs to widen demand registration so that no demand for work goes unrecorded. Plans under the scheme are prepared with people taking part and are approved in the Gram Sabha, and a Rozgar Diwas is held to spread word about what the scheme offers.