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Abstract
The Government of India introduced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mahatma Gandhi NREGA) in September 2005. This law guarantees 100 days of paid work each year to adult members of rural households who need jobs and are willing to do unskilled manual labour. The programme aims to improve rural livelihoods and reduce poverty by providing wage employment. However, several issues have been found in how the programme is designed and managed, from the local Panchayat to the state and national levels. These challenges at the grassroots level have affected the programme’s success. It is important to understand what has worked well, what has not, and how the programme can be improved in terms of governance at the grassroots. Using data collected for a nationwide study from 7,950 households across 25 states, this paper reports challenges and issues that constrain implementation at the panchayat level. The findings show that some states are well ahead of others in terms of efficiency but lag behind in effectiveness. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the scheme’s governance still needs to be improved. The findings emphasise the importance of enhancing efficiency, fostering worker participation, and addressing entitlements to achieve sustainable livelihoods and meaningful outcomes across all states and UTs.
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