Paper Title
MGNREGA: A Social Equity Scheme for Driving Rural India

Abstract
MGNREGA is an ambitious mass employment guarantee scheme implemented since the last 13 years in India. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in India in 2005. It guarantees 100 days of work and ensures at least 33 per cent of the women participation. Even though MGNREGA has played a substantial role in economically empowering women, it faces major challenges that restrict their participation. This paper dwells into the complexities faced by women in India and exposes various factors that limit the success of MGNREGA. The study finds that tenacious social norms, continued illegal presence of contractors, lack of proper childcare facilities and delayed payments are the crucial factors that restrict women participation. Policy implications for Indian Government are also put forward. The implementation of the MGNREGA has yielded encouraging results, despite an uneven performance across the country. Majority of the studies vindicate its effect in augmenting employment, increasing wage earnings, stemming distress migration, enhancing productivity and promoting social equity, especially gender equity. This Act for unskilled manual labour is ushering in a new era of technology and financial inclusion for rural communities. Moreover, the MGNREGA promises from the perspective of women empowerment as well. It enshrined employment for women at fair wages in the village and also economically empowering women and laying the basis for greater independence and self-esteem. In fact, empowering of women is essentially the process of upliftment of socio-economic and political status of women. This paper examines the empowerment effects of the MGNREGA on women at both individual and community levels. Keywords- MGNREGA, Women Empowerment, Employment, Social Equity