Prior to the 16th Lok Sabha election, BJP and other major political parties had promised to improve the implementation of MGNREGA. However after the election the NDA Government changed stance and has tried to roll back the job guaranty programme in three different ways—a. Budget allocation for the programme has been squeezed despite MGNREGA being demand-based; b. The Government is changing the nature of programme from labour intensive to material intensive; and c. The Act is being converted into a scheme by restricting its implementation in one-third of the blocks in India that are considered as backward.
