SUCCESS, FLAWS AND FIXES

Times Of India

Context and Central Issue

The article undertakes a comprehensive review of India’s flagship Right to Work architecture, tracing the evolution from NREGA (MGNREGA) to the proposed GRAM (Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan–type convergence framework). It assesses why a globally admired programme required restructuring, what worked over two decades, where systemic weaknesses emerged, and whether the redesigned scheme can deliver more durable rural livelihoods.

Key Arguments Presented

MGNREGA was a historic success in income security
The article acknowledges that NREGA fundamentally altered rural distress management by guaranteeing wage employment, stabilising consumption, reducing distress migration, and empowering marginalised groups, especially women.

Structural flaws accumulated over time
Chronic delays in wage payments, administrative centralisation, declining real wages, and shrinking work demand-response credibility weakened the programme’s effectiveness. The legal right increasingly became a conditional entitlement.

Asset quality and productivity concerns persisted
While employment generation was robust, the quality, durability, and economic productivity of assets created under NREGA remained uneven, limiting long-term income generation.

GRAM seeks convergence, not replacement
The article clarifies that GRAM is not positioned as a substitute but as a convergence-based correction, integrating skilling, asset creation, rural infrastructure, and livelihoods across ministries.

Shift from relief to resilience
The redesign reflects a policy shift—from short-term wage relief to sustainable rural livelihoods, enterprise creation, and skill-linked employment.

Author’s Stance

The author adopts a balanced, reformist stance. NREGA is treated neither as a failure nor as untouchable orthodoxy. The article supports reform, provided it strengthens the original rights-based spirit while correcting operational and productivity deficits.

Biases and Perspective

Welfare-state sympathetic bias
The article views employment guarantee primarily as a social protection tool rather than a fiscal burden, emphasising dignity of labour and rights-based welfare.

Cautious optimism toward reform
While open to restructuring, the article is sceptical of abrupt dilution of legal guarantees and warns against technocratic overcorrection.

Rural equity lens
Urban employment challenges and fiscal trade-offs receive limited attention compared to rural distress and agrarian vulnerability.

Pros and Cons of the Transition

Pros

• Retains employment guarantee logic while improving asset outcomes
• Encourages inter-ministerial convergence and skill development
• Aligns rural employment with infrastructure and productivity goals
• Reduces repetitive, low-value work cycles

Cons

• Risk of weakening the legal “right to work” framework
• Implementation complexity across departments
• Potential exclusion of the poorest without strong demand-driven safeguards
• Dependence on administrative capacity at local levels

Policy Implications

Social protection design
India is moving from pure wage employment toward hybrid livelihood models, raising questions about rights versus discretion.

Federal and local governance
Effective convergence requires empowered Panchayati Raj institutions and predictable fund flows.

Fiscal policy
Reforms aim to improve expenditure efficiency rather than reduce welfare spending outright.

Labour market strategy
Signals a broader attempt to link rural employment schemes with skilling, migration management, and non-farm job creation.

Real-World Impact

• Rural workers may gain better-quality livelihoods if convergence succeeds
• Women workers risk marginalisation if flexibility reduces guaranteed days
• States face higher coordination and monitoring responsibilities
• Economy benefits if rural assets translate into sustained productivity

UPSC GS Paper Alignment

GS Paper II (Governance & Social Justice)

• Welfare schemes and rights-based entitlements
• Centre–State relations in scheme implementation

GS Paper III (Economy & Inclusive Growth)

• Employment generation
• Rural development and asset creation
• Labour market reforms

Essay Paper

• “From welfare to empowerment: rethinking social protection”
• “Rights-based schemes in a fiscally constrained state”

Balanced Conclusion and Future Perspective

The article convincingly argues that MGNREGA’s legacy is one of undeniable success tempered by institutional fatigue. Reform was necessary, but the manner of reform matters as much as the intent. GRAM offers a promising framework if it complements—rather than compromises—the foundational right to work.

The future challenge lies in ensuring that efficiency does not replace entitlement, and that productivity gains do not come at the cost of exclusion. A reimagined rural employment system must combine legal guarantees, administrative flexibility, and economic sustainability to remain both humane and effective in a changing rural economy.