Knowledge and Attitude Level of the MGNREGA Respondents in Nalanda District of Bihar

Abstract

Population wise Bihar is third populated state in India. In the state more than 85% of population stays in rural area and the state is the least urbanized state of the country and have a low source of income which leads to increase in poverty. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (or, NREGA, later renamed as the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”, MGNREGA), is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’. The present study aims to analyse the knowledge and attitude level of MGNREGA respondents. The study was conducted in Nalanda district of Bihar which was selected purposively as the MGNREGA scheme is currently running in the district. Hilsa block was selected by purposive sampling for the study as the block has the largest number of MGNREGA beneficiaries. Total six villages were selected for the study by purposively considering the fact that these villages have greater number of MGNREGA beneficiaries. A total of 120 respondents were taken randomly. The data were collected by pre- structured interview schedule and appropriate statistical analysis was done to find out the meaningful results. The finding of the study reveals that the majority (47.50 per cent) of the respondents had medium level of knowledge about MGNREGA scheme followed by 32.50 per cent and 20 per cent of the respondents having high and low level of knowledge, respectively. It also reveals that 40 per cent of the respondents had medium level of attitude of MGNREGA scheme followed by 33.33 per cent and 26.67 per cent of the respondents having high and low level of attitude.