This year marks the twentieth anniversary of a landmark statutory right established by Parliament. This is the right to work, or right to employment. Such a right is envisaged in Article 41 of the Constitution, directing all states to secure a right to work for all citizens. This law was created as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which was passed in Parliament on August 23, 2005. It gave the right to a hundred days of unskilled manual work, at a specified daily wage, for one member of every rural household that asked for it. One third of these jobs created were to be reserved for women. Employment is to be given within 5km of the residence of the applicant. And if the government is unable to create such an employment, then it has to give some allowance in lieu of wages. This is the biggest social security and public works programme in the world. Despite early scepticism, it is now universally hailed as a stellar programme of development even by the World Bank.

The provision of rural jobs on demand is a proxy for unemployment insurance. In developed countries, an unemployed person goes and registers himself or herself at the employment exchange, and while looking for a job, gets an unemployment dole. India does not have such a system, since the labour market is not as well organised. Instead, we have the NREGA scheme (also sometimes called NREGS), which covers the rural population. The NREGS employment demand spikes up during droughts and famines, and that is why it is an “insurance” programme de facto. The demand for NREGS falls when labour market conditions improve and there is plenty of work........

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