Which one of the following is not an objective of the MGNREGA?
- (a)Providing up to 100 days of skilled labour in a financial year
- (b)Creation of productive assets
- (c)Enhancing livelihood security
- (d)Ensuring empowerment to women
Correct — A, Providing up to 100 days of skilled labour in a financial year. The Act guarantees at least a hundred days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do UNSKILLED manual work. That single word carries the whole answer. The guarantee is deliberately pitched at work anyone can do, without training or a trade, because it is meant to function as a floor under the rural labour market and to be self-selecting — people who have better-paid options do not turn up for it. Everything else in the option list is genuinely part of the design: durable and productive assets are to be created from the work done, livelihood security is the Act's stated purpose, and at least one-third of the beneficiaries are to be women.
- (b)Creation of productive assets — Squarely an objective. Permissible works are chosen so that the labour leaves something behind — water conservation structures, farm ponds, rural connectivity, land development — rather than being pure relief.
- (c)Enhancing livelihood security — This is the Act's own language. The guarantee exists to put a floor under rural incomes in the lean season, and its long title speaks of enhancing livelihood security in rural areas.
- (d)Ensuring empowerment to women — Also an objective, and a measurable one: at least one-third of the beneficiaries are to be women, and wages are paid on equal terms to men and women.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed on 23 August 2005 and implemented from 2 February 2006; it was renamed after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009. Its core is a legal entitlement, not a scheme benefit: any rural household that demands work must be given at least a hundred days of unskilled manual work in the financial year, within five kilometres of the residence, at the statutory minimum wage, with an unemployment allowance if work is not provided in time.
Not-an-objective questions are answered by finding the one option that misstates a defining term rather than the one that sounds least important. Here, three options paraphrase real features and the fourth swaps a single word — skilled for unskilled. That swap matters in practice, not just on paper, because a skill requirement would defeat self-selection and exclude exactly the households the guarantee is for. Present-day note for a student reading this now: Parliament passed the Viksit Bharat — Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act in December 2025, replacing MGNREGA with a new rural employment and livelihood framework, so the Act named in this 2020 paper is no longer the operative one.
- The guarantee is of at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year for unskilled manual work, to one adult member of every rural household that volunteers.
- NREGA was passed on 23 August 2005 and came into force on 2 February 2006; it was renamed MGNREGA in 2009.
- Work must be provided within five kilometres of the applicant's residence, and an unemployment allowance is due if it is not provided in time.
- At least one-third of the beneficiaries are to be women, and wages are paid on equal terms to men and women.
- Parliament replaced the Act in December 2025 with the Viksit Bharat — Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025.
- Missing the skilled-for-unskilled substitution, which is the whole question.
- Reading the hundred days as a per-person entitlement; it is per household per financial year.
As a not-an-objective or not-correct item, or as a statement-set on eligibility, the wage rule and the women's share.
Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”?
- (a) Adult members of only the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households
- (b) Adult members of below poverty line (BPL) households
- (c) Adult members of households of all backward communities
- (d) Adult members of any household
Answer(d) Adult members of any household
The same Act tested on scope rather than on the kind of work. The guarantee is open to any rural household that demands it, which is why the work has to be unskilled manual work — a skill filter would undo the universality.
Consider the following statements in respect of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 : 1. Under the provisions of the Act, 100 days of employment in a year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work has become a fundamental right. 2. Under the provisions of the Act, women are to get priority to the extent that one-half of persons who are given employment are women who have asked for work. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Two precise traps on the same guarantee: it is a statutory entitlement rather than a Fundamental Right under Part III, and the floor for women is one-third of beneficiaries, not one-half.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under the rural employment guarantee, the hundred days of work in a financial year are guaranteed to
- (a)every adult resident of a rural area
- (b)every rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work
- (c)only households below the poverty line
- (d)only Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households
Answer(b) every rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work — the entitlement is by household and is not restricted by caste or poverty status.
- practice — not a real PYQ
What share of beneficiaries under MGNREGA was required to be women?
- (a)At least one-tenth
- (b)At least one-fourth
- (c)At least one-third
- (d)At least one-half
Answer(c) At least one-third — the Act sets a floor of one-third women beneficiaries and requires equal wages for men and women.