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India: Independent Left Groups and Employment Guarantee in Maharashtra

8 January 2007

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Compared to other state-led poverty alleviation programmes, there has been a greater degree of mobilisation around the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) in Maharashtra. Between the early 1970s and late 1980s, a number of organisations emerged mobilising rural workers in different parts of Maharashtra to get EGS enacted and implemented. Further, they used EGS as a platform to raise broader questions of discrimination affect- ing marginalised groups, issues of social reforms and poverty. In 1981, they came together forming an umbrella organisation – the Maharashtra Rajya Shetmajoor and Employment Guarantee Scheme W orkers Samanvaya Samiti (henceforth Samanvaya Samiti) – to collectively advocate for changes in state policy relating to rural workers in the context of EGS.

Power of the People: Political Mobilisation and Guaranteed Employment
by Shaji Joseph
(EPW, Dec 16, 2006)