Impact Assessment of Mgnrega in Meghalaya: A Case Study of East Khasi Hills District

Abstract

Poverty is one of the main issues in India, attracting the attention of sociologists, economists and political class equally. Government of India has been running many poverty-alleviation programmes and some success also achieved in this endeavour over the years. However, even today Governments struggle with mass level of poverty and related problems. Amidst great hype and hope, Indian parliament passed a revolutionary novel and unique Act i.e. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005. Various institutions and individuals have documented the processes of revival and resurgence largely driven by the MGNREGA as an axis of struggle by the rural poor. It has neither been claimed nor was envisaged that that MGNREGA is the key to successful rej uvenation of rural areas of the country that have remained marginalized in the growth process of the country. Study on MGNREGA in Meghalaya is lacking, so therefore the present study was taken with the two objectives. 1. To evaluate the impact of MGNREGA on assets of the beneficiaries. 2. To evaluate the impact of MGNREGA on house construction of the beneficiaries. The primary data was collected from East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya with pre-structured interview schedule. The study revealed that there was an increase in the number of households acquiring cell phones by 31.67 per cent after MGNREGA due to the increase in income. The number of households having television sets have increased by 8.33 per cent after working in MGNREGA and the number of households having radio sets have decreased by 1.67 per cent. On the basis of equality of income pertaining to both the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, the possession of assets like farm implements, television sets, radio, cell phones, poultry and pig is seen to have its advantage for the beneficiaries. With the introduction of the scheme the beneficiaries also have the advantage of house construction, repairing and extension which has increased by 50 per cent in the number of households after the scheme as compared prior to the scheme. It was evident from the findings that the rural households in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya have been benefited from MGNREGA in many ways as it has increased their purchasing power resulting in multiple impacts in their social and economic life; however there is still a long way to fulfill the purpose and objectives of MGNREGA and ensure the livelihood security of the rural and tribal households.