NEGLIGENCE TOWARDS THE DISABLED IN MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME: A STUDY (Pages 93-103) by Mr. Rajeshwar Rao Lingudhari* and Mr. Edunuri Venkateshwarlu** in THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER / ISSN: 2348-9413 (Online); 2348-9405 (Print)

Ever since India achieved independence, poverty alleviation in rural areas became one of the major in all most all the five year plans of the country. One of the major challenges before successive governments has been provision of adequate remunerative employment to the vast majority of rural workers who have been unemployed or mostly underemployed in meager subsistence livelihood activities. The Indian constitution addressed the issue as part of the Directive Principles of State Policy. According to Article 39, the state must ensure that “citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood” and Article 41 enunciates that “the state, shall within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing Right to Work…….” The right to work as such did not get the needed priority, though the government of India from time to time did undertake public works related wage employment programmes since 1960s. These programmes were mostly adhoc in nature, had limited impact in generation of employment, lacked proper planning in creation of assets and most of the assets created were of poor quality and often suffered from poor maintenance. These programmes did not make any lasting impact either on rural unemployment or in improving rural resources. Keywords: poverty alleviation, rural areas, five year plans, remunerative employment, Indian constitution, Directive Principles of State Policy, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, The Disabled etc.