Identifying The Scope For Introducing ‘Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’ As An Academic Specialization: A Field Work Case Study Of Thiruvarur

Abstract

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, 2005 has been a safety net for the distressed poor for more than 15 years. The world is facing multiple challenges from all sides, climate crisis, natural resources degradation, hunger and poverty, in addition to a worldwide health emergency. And a program like MGNREGA which is multi-dimensional allows one to have guaranteed and dignified work within one’s locality, allowing one to build rural infrastructure, conserve natural resources and create any durable assets of quality while being socially inclusive. A program such as this can be an answer to variety of problems faced by the nation at once. The purpose of this paper is to identify the scope for devising an exclusive multidisciplinary academic program for MGNREGA thereby putting in trained professionals for the smooth functioning of the program.  This idea is aided by the importance and focus given to holistic multidisciplinary education by the new National Education Policy (2020). The paper aims to achieve that by analyzing the structure and performance and finding structural issues with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme (2005) by taking the case of Thiruvarur district. The literature review shows some of the relevant themes in the program like social audit, payment deliverance, the impact of covid and their performance nationwide and compares it with the field results. Paper also shows the bottlenecks faced from the field and why the academic specialization, putting more students into the NREGA workforce is necessary.