Ujjain: MGNREGA marks a paradigm shift from previous wage employment programmes through its rights-based framework that provides a legal guarantee of wage employment and its measures for the empowerment of stakeholders.
The ordeal unleashed by Covid-19 outbreak has been extra ordinary and MGNREGA was able to offer a great humanitarian support to the marginalised section of society up to great extent. There is a need to have one job card on the line of one ration card so as to minimise the distress of marginalised in rural areas.
These were the words of Prof Ashwini Kumar of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He shared insights on the untility of MGNREGA in his address as a keynote speaker during a national webinar on ‘MGNREGA as Humanitarian Response: Policy Insights’ organised by MP Institute of Social Science Research (MPISSR), here on Friday in the joint collaboration of UNICEF and Government of Madhya Pradesh. Opening remarks were made by Misaki Akasaka Ueda, chief, Social Policy, Monitoring and Evaluation, United Nations Children’s Fund, New Delhi.
The inaugural session was chaired by Manoj Shrivastava, additional chief secretary of panchayat raj and rural development. He eloquently shared the perspective of the government and also the efforts made by the government.
It was followed by four policy papers presentation by Dr Yatindra Singh Sisodia, director, MPISSR; Dr Yogesh Kumar, Samarthan, Bhopal; Prof Sanjay Lodha, Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur and Dharimstha Chouhan, development consultant. During this session important aspect of COVID-19, vulnerability, economic distress, the precarious situation of women and children, humanitarian response of MGNREGA and potential areas of improvement were discussed threadbare. This session was chaired by Sachin Sinha, principal secretary, department of panchayat raj and rural development, State government.
Veena Bandopadhyaya, social policy specialist, UNICEF, Bhopal offered concluding remarks and proposed a vote of thanks. The event was compeered by Dr Tapas Kumar Dalapati, MPISSR. The webinar was attended by more than 150 researchers, faculties and development practitioners from across the country.
