MGNREGA: Investment in Soil Systems Asset Creation

Preserving and enriching soil and associated natural resources within the framework of MGNREGA and employment generation is a way of ensuring and enhancing individual and national productivity in the future

A part from its people, the asset that has most fundamentally nurtured the productivity and sustainability of Indian civilization over the millennia has been its soil and associated natural resources. The abundance and diversity of India’s flora and fauna (both macro and micro) and the adequacy of its hydrological cycles all depend, as do humans, upon the fertility and functions of the soil. All sectors of the economy rest directly or indirectly upon the food and material produced, and the employment and income created by agricultural pursuits. These cannot succeed without well-functioning soil systems that make other factors of production efficient and productive.

The soil systems of India are, thus, the most basic material asset of the country, and yet they have been tragically depleted and diminished over centuries of use and misuse. The most salient parameter for evaluating this is the loss of soil organic matter (SOM), which provides the essential source of energy for the myriad soil organisms that make inert mineral material into dynamic and productive soil systems. SOM has the advantage of making soil more absorptive and retentive of water, an increasingly scarce and crucial resource as a result of the changing climate. Water absorption and retention have the added benefits of reducing soil erosion and abating the damages from flooding. So more robust and better-functioning soil systems not only create value by increasing agricultural productivity but also protect values and assets, which would otherwise be lost, and diminish costs imposed by natural disasters.

MGNREGA serves the dual objectives of creating employment and income opportunities for Indian men and women living below the poverty line, who direly need enhanced income streams to lead acceptable lives, and of creating assets that put their labour to good use that enhances individual and national productivity in the future, making India as well as its citizens more productive and secure.