National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs.100 per day. The Central government outlay for scheme is Rs. 39,100 crores ($8 billion) in FY 2009-10.
This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around one-third of the stipulated work force is women.
Process
Adult members of rural households submit their name, age and address with a photo to the Gram Panchayat. The Panchayat registers households after verification and issues a job card. The job card contains the details of the adult member enrolled and his/her photo. A registered person can submit an application for work in writing (for at least fourteen days of continuous work) either to the panchayat or to Programme Officer.
The panchayat/programme officer accepts the valid application and issue a dated receipt of application. A letter providing employment will be sent to the applicant and also displayed at the panchayat office. Employment will be provided if possible within a radius of 5 km; if it is above 5 km, transport allowance and 10% extra living allowance will be paid. New public works can be started when at least 50 workers become available who cannot be absorbed under existing schemes. If employment under the scheme is not provided within fifteen days of receipt of the application daily unemployment allowance will be paid to the applicant.
No discrimination between men and women is allowed under the act. Therefore, men and women must be paid the same wage. All adults can apply for employment, not just those below the poverty line.
History and Funding :
The scheme started from February 2, 2006 in 200 districts, was expanded to cover another 130 districts in 2007-2008 and eventually covered all 593 districts in India in april 01, 2008. The outlay was Rs. 11,000 crores in 2006-2007, and has been rising steeply, to Rs. 39,100 crores (140% incresed amount respect of previous 2008-2009 budget) in 2009-2010.