The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is, many argue, the one initiative of the UPA that helped it win a second term. It has, experts say, changed the social landscape in villages. But now the government has admitted that many villagers still do not have a clue about the right to demand work.

Four years after the NREGA came into effect, lack of awareness among the people in villages across India about the right to demand work that the Act mandates, is still a problem, the rural development ministry has conceded in its vision document for 2010-11.

So, the ministry plans to educate the rural masses about the scheme and the right in endows. The key activities it has listed to achieve the aim are consultation with media leaders; formation of strategy groups; formulation of communication strategy through multimedia; dissemination of communication material; screening of films, spots, jingles; use of local vernacular papers; awareness campaign local cultural forms, wall papers, street plays; creating youth movements, one-day orientation for all sarpanches.

The ministry expect that these activities should lead the workers to know how and where to apply for registration, use of job cards for demanding employment and record entitlements; they should be able to obtain employment according to choice of time and date; they should know about the notified wages; BPL households should able to participate in the scheme; remote areas should have works under the scheme going on.

The deadline for all these activities is August end.