Delivering NREGS

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is a flagship programme unanimously approved by the Indian Parliament. It emerged to address the issue of providing additional wage employment income and address poverty, hunger, malnutrition and distress migration but this approach to social protection has gained momentum and global attention in the context of the global economic crises. Given the nature of distress migration, hunger, unemployment, NREGS is an effective instrument, must be implemented as a long-term measure. In this context, this book, which presents hands on experience and creative ideas
that are validated on the ground has immense value. We congratulate the Centre for Environment Concerns (CEC), Hyderabad, and a long-standing partner of the global Oxfam family. I am particularly happy that in this NREGA initiative, Oxfam India, which plays a pioneering role in addressing vulnerability, poverty, distress and disaster response is working closely with CEC and select other partners in taking forward a flagship Indian effort forward. A quick reading of the book will show that CEC has been very active, both, at generating and winning, the support of the government through creative and innovative policy work with new ways of addressing issues, and also its deliverance on the ground to the needy people. The book argues that India's rural workforce had clearly not benefited from the marked acceleration of the GDP since the eighties and agriculture as a livelihood was facing a series of crises with the prospect of an imminent structural collapse.