14 Dec : The Centre is implementing National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (NREGA) as wage employment programme and Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yozna (SGSY) as self employment programme in the rural areas including drought affected areas of the country, for poverty alleviation and employment generation. The target groups under these schemes include SCs/STs, women, physically challenged and others. The Government of India has also constituted an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), which has been mandated to take decisions on policy and schemes required for effective management of drought/deficit rainfall and related issues.
Schemes in the agricultural sector aim at increasing production and productivity and in the process create additional employment in agriculture. Several development programmes such as National Food Security Mission, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, Macro Management of Agriculture covering Integrated Cereals Development Programme (ICDP) for Rice, Wheat and Coarse Cereals, Gramin Bhandaran Yojana, Development of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Micro Irrigation, Rural Credit, Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil Palm and Maize (ISOPOM) and National Horticulture Mission (NHM) are being implemented.