National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Research Articles

THE IMPACT OF MGNREGA ON TRIBAL POPULATION: A CASE STUDY OF JALPAIGURI DISTRICT IN WEST BENGAL

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was passed in 2005 and went into effect on February 2, 2006, covering 200 districts across India. Later on, this scheme was renamed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in 2009.This act was passed to improve the stability of rural livelihoods by offering every household whose adult members agreed to perform unskilled manual labour 100 days of guaranteed pay employment in each financial year.The Ministry of Rural Development implements this scheme in partnership with state governments. The local governance bodies, such as Panchayati Raj Institutions, play an important role in the project development and implementation ofthis scheme in rural India. MGNREGS programs include water conservation, drought mitigation, land development, rural connection, and other rural infrastructure-building initiativeschosen according to local requirements and priorities.We selected the Jalpaiguri district for our study because it has several problems such as seasonal lockouts of tea plantations, shuttered tea gardens, unemployed laborers in isolated and closed forest villages, no heavy industry since independence, etc. In this paper we attempt to find out whether the implementation of the MGNREGA program in the Jalpaiguri district has improved the livelihood of the Tribal Population in the district and also how effective this program is in dealing with the unemployment problem among the ST population in the district.This study is based on both primary and secondary data from two blocks of Jalpaiguri district i.e. Mal and Nagrakata blockscovering the period 2017-18 to 2022-23. And from each block, I have chosen the two most populace GPs within the blocks.Although the MGNREGS is a good program for reducing rural poverty and unemployment, our primary survey reveals inadequate results in terms of job creation for tribal peoples and those living in the remote tea garden areas within the district. Furthermore, this scheme does not improve Scheduled Tribes (STs) standard of living by providing jobs and promoting their participation in village affairs, hence it is less effective as the participation of ST workers against active workers currently stands at only 12.86 percent.

Socio, Economic And Infrastructural Impact Of MGNREGA: Lessons From Two Decades Of Public Policy

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) also famously known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is an Indian Laboure’s law which was exceedingly recognised as the social safety net in the post independent era. Since its inception 2005, the scheme has been providing employment to the rural households during vulnerable situations particularly in the lean seasons. The objectives of directive principle of state policy (DPSP) have been fulfilled through this scheme to establish economic and social democracy in the country. Over the years, the cumulative total exceeds 50 billion persondays since the program's inception. The present paper attempts analyse the MGNREGA’s impact on the different sectors

Contentious politics of welfare in rural India: The interplay between the Maoist insurgency and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

This paper examines whether the Indian government used the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to counter the radical mobilization of rural poor by the Maoist Naxalite movement. Employing an original district-level dataset from 2006 to 2014 and the GLOCON database on political events, it adopts a quasi-experimental method to analyze the strategy's effectiveness. The findings suggest that the government targeted districts with higher rural mobilization using NREGA as a counter-insurgency tool. However, the Naxalites effectively countered this strategy. Analysis of journals from the factions Liberation and People's March shows that the Naxalites actively claimed benefits under NREGA, transforming it from a containment tool to a governmental concession. This study concludes that the government's strategy was unsuccessful due to the effective counter-strategy by the Naxalites.

An Empirical Study of the Impact of NREGA Implementation on Rural Poverty Rates in India

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), now known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), was implemented in India with the objective of enhancing livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment per year to every household willing to do unskilled manual work. This study empirically examines the impact of NREGA on rural poverty rates in India, utilizing a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach to analyze data from the National Sample Survey (NSS) and Census of India. The findings reveal a significant reduction in rural poverty rates in districts where NREGA was implemented compared to non-NREGA districts. The program has been particularly effective in regions with higher initial poverty levels, indicating successful targeting of the most vulnerable populations. Additionally, the study highlights regional variations in the impact of NREGA, with some areas experiencing greater benefits than others. The results suggest that while NREGA has substantially contributed to poverty reduction, its effectiveness is influenced by local governance and administrative capacities. Policy recommendations include improving administrative efficiency, enhancing the quality and sustainability of created assets, and complementing NREGA with other skill development and capacity-building initiatives. Addressing regional disparities and ensuring robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are also crucial for maximizing the program’s impact.

MGNREGP - PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES IN ARUNACHAL PRADESH

ABSTRACT The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was introduced in 2005 under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), 2005. On 2nd October’2009, NREGA has been renamed as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA). MGNREGA provides 100 days of guaranteed employment opportunities in a financial year to any rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage. It is an important step towards the realisation of the Right to Work. It is also expected to enhance People’s livelihoods on a sustainable basis by developing the economic and social infrastructure in rural areas. The MGNREGP is different from earlier wage employment programmes because of its legal and demand-driven framework. However, there is no denying fact that there have been many problems in infusing the system with the new culture of demand-driven, right-based and decentralized decision making. The present study was carried in Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh where the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) was initiated in second phase in the financial year 2007-08.

NREGA and Employment opportunity in Nabadwip block

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is being considered as a ‘Silver Bullet’ for the development of society. It has been eradicating the rural poverty and unemployment by the way of generating more employment for productive unskilled labour in rural India. In last few decades, rural poverty and unemployment have grown in an unprecedented. Nabadwip is a community development block in Nadia District. It forms an administrative division in Krishnanagar Sadar subdivision of Nadia district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Nabadwip CD block had to be semi industrially developed and least agriculturally dependent. The NREGA is a demand-driven people centred scheme. The NREGA Act had passed in September, 2005. But NREGA has been implemented in Nadia district from 1st April, 2007. NREGA guarantees 100 days of right to work for every individual in the village section of India. According to the Act, it can enhance the quality of life and motivate or mobilise the life style of citizens all over the country as well as study block. The research study is mainly based on Krishnagar II CD block and Nabadiwip CD Block of Nadia district. It is discussed in this article on various issues like background of Nabadwip block, brief note of employment provided HH against demanded HH, employment provided HH of SCs, STs and Women, employment persondays generated and lastly but not a least discussed about average no. of days employment provided per HH in study Nabadwip block.

Impact of MGNERGA on Socio-economic Upliftment of Rural People in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

The present study was undertaken to investigate the impact of MGNREGA on socio-economic upliftment of respondents in Madhya Pradesh, India. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005 and it was later renamed as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on 2nd October 2009. The MGNREGA has completed fifteen years since its beginning in India”. The target of the scheme is to improve livelihood security of the household in rural areas of the country by giving at least 100 days of guaranteed employment in every financial year of every household whose adult member volunteers to do the unskilled work. The present study conducted in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh has examined the impact of MGNREGA on socioeconomic Upliftment beneficiaries. The study is based on random sample of 245 respondents. The survey is done through a questionnaire and direct interviews. Based on observation, it is concluded that there is change in the income generation category and annual income.

Public works programmes and agricultural risk: Evidence from India

AbstractThe agricultural sectors in many low‐ and middle‐income countries remain highly vulnerable to weather risk, a vulnerability that will only intensify under climate change. The globally trending public works programmes have the potential to impact weather‐related agricultural risk. I explore the impact of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on weather‐related agricultural risk. My empirical strategy explores the staggered roll‐out of NREGA and random weather fluctuations. Using a nationwide panel of data, I find that NREGA makes crop yields more sensitive to low rainfall shocks. I posit that these results are consistent with a labour market channel, by which NREGA increases nonfarm labour supply in low rainfall years, and an income channel, by which NREGA leads to riskier agricultural practices. These results highlight the importance of understanding how social protection programmes shape agricultural risk.

Cognizance of Tribal People Through MGNREGA with Reference to West Singhbhum District of Jharkhand

The Government of India has launched a new scheme for wage employment which is named as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The law was passed on August 25, 2005, and it came to effect on 2nd of February 2006. It is not merely a scheme but as an Act passed by the parliament for the eradication of poverty in rural areas through generating employment opportunities. Mahatma Gandhi Nation Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Act is the flagship programme in which every fiscal year, unskilled manual workers are provided 100 days of guaranteed wage employment. This programme was implemented by the Government of India with the prime objective of providing livelihood security in rural areas and creating of durable assets. The present study aims at focussing in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. The study focused on the awareness of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the work activities provided to the beneficiaries. The data has been analysed and it has been found that, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the fundamental principles of the scheme. Keywords: Employment, Tribal, Programme, Government of India, MGNREGA

Gender, Social Protection, and Crises of Social Reproduction: Contextualizing NREGA

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of social protection programs such as India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). And yet, acute crises such as pandemics are layered upon existing inequalities of gender and caste in India. We show that a distinctive feature of twenty-first-century Indian capitalism is a restructuring of the caste-gender division of labor in rural India, such that women’s unpaid labor of social reproduction has increased, particularly for women from marginalized castes. Thus, patterns of participation in NREGA cannot be understood without understanding the specifics of the underlying crisis of social reproduction for labor. Social protection programs that do not consider the labor of social reproduction and are unaccompanied by broader socialization of such labor then likely fall short of mitigating deep-rooted inequalities. JEL Classification: B54, J21, J88

Corruption in NREGA: a theoretical analysis

PurposeNiehaus and Sukhtankar (2013a, 2013b) find that in response to an increase in the public wage rate in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), underpayment of wage and embezzlement rates increase monotonically. This paper aims to investigate theoretically whether the empirical finding of Niehaus and Sukhtankar (2013b) is valid in the long run. The author also verify whether their observation extends to the situation where multiple types of corruption coexist.Design/methodology/approachThe author builds a theoretical model comprising of three individuals – a government official, a landlord and a representative worker. First, the author defines a no-corruption equilibrium where the official honestly reports the employment period to the government. In a two-stage game, the landlord announces the private wage rate in stage one, followed by the worker deciding on the allocation of time between private and public works and leisure. Then the author considers a single type of corruption where the official embezzles a part of public money by over-reporting the employment period. The landlord-worker game remains the same as before. Finally, the author considers multiple types of corruption where alongside embezzlement, the official takes a bribe from the worker for employing her. Here also, the author considers a two-stage game where in stage one, the official and landlord simultaneously determine embezzlement and bribe rates and the private wage rate, respectively. In stage two, the worker decides on the allocation of time. In both types of corruption, the probability of detection increases with the corruption rate.FindingsIn the case of a single type of corruption, the embezzlement rate behaves nonmonotonically in response to an increase in the public wage rate. A similar kind of result is obtained with multiple types of corruption as well.Originality/valueFirst, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no paper prior to this has theoretically modeled corruption in NREGA. Also, the observations of Niehaus and Sukhtankar (2013a, 2013b) is neither valid in the long run nor extend to multiple corruptions.

No employment without participation: An evaluation of India's employment programme in eastern Uttar Pradesh

SummaryMotivationThe Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) provides 100 days of employment a year at the legal minimum wage to every rural household. At the national level, the programme has been highly successful in providing an income safety net to small peasant farmers and landless workers.PurposeAn analysis of bottlenecks in supply and demand in the implementation of NREGA in the poorer states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. This research aims to understand how public participation and local political economy factors attenuate the guarantee of public employment and equal wages for the most marginalized groups.Methods and approachEvidence from field research in the Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh was used to conduct an empirical analysis of the functioning of NREGA.FindingsOur research shows how awareness among programme beneficiaries of their legal entitlements and awareness at various levels of government about the programme determine the provision of NREGA employment in one of the poorest regions of the country.Policy implicationsOur findings suggest that patron–client exchanges between the local elite and NREGA beneficiaries determine the provision of public employment and generate rents for the local elite. There is, therefore, an urgent need to increase transparency in NREGA provision and create mechanisms to hold elected representatives and government functionaries accountable to NREGA beneficiaries.

What Happens to Public Service Delivery under a Weak Civil Society? Evidence from India

This paper argues the performance of public service delivery under weak civil society. Drawing on information from the world largest workfare programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), it is argued that in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) benefits of NREGA hardly reaches the poor. This is due to the presence of weak civil society organisations (CSOs), which is riddled with corruption and factionalism, and operates at the cost of social expense. The ruling elites who hold the key to these institutions have made it difficult for citizens to voice their concerns and negotiate their entitlements.

Breaking new ground: women’s employment in India’s NREGA, the pandemic lifeline

ABSTRACT India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), in the last 15 years, has evolved as the world’s largest employer of the last resort. This social protection, specifically designed as a demand-driven automatic employment stabiliser to enable households to cope with livelihood shocks, offers 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to all rural households. The budget for this unique legislative entitlement in a developing country was nearly doubled from US$8 billion in 2019–20 to $15 billion in 2020–21 to partially offset the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. After the first pandemic wave, NREGA provided employment to 76 million households – more than a third of all rural Indian families. Even though women have consistently worked more than half the NREGA person-days annually, in the midst of the pandemic women’s share of employment declined by 2 per cent in 2020–21. However, this may have been a temporary decrease due to the unprecedented mass reverse exodus of urban migrants to their rural villages. Still, state-level analysis in this research highlights the persistent under-utilisation of NREGA by women in the poorer states of the Indo-Gangetic plain. On the other hand, the southern states have higher participation of women due to a combination of factors including better human development outcomes, higher wages, and sometimes better child-care facilities at worksites, which are necessary nationwide remedies. In particular, in the state of Kerala the novel integration of the government-initiated Kudumbashree community self-help women’s groups with NREGA has led to the feminisation of the programme. This convergence provides important insights on the significance of women’s participation in the decentralised management of NREGA to dilute both gender-intensive and gender-exclusive barriers, which could be fruitfully replicated nationwide.

NREGA: An effective way to fight poverty

Public works programs, aimed at building a strong social safety net through redistribution of wealth and generation of meaningful employment, are becoming increasingly popular in developing countries. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), enacted in August 2005, is one such program in India. This paper assesses causal impacts (Intent-to Treat) of NREGA on public works participation, labor force participation, and real wages of casual workers by exploiting its phased implementation across Indian districts. Using nationally representative data from Indian National Sample Surveys (NSS) and Difference-in Difference framework, we find that there is a strong gender dimension to the impacts of NREGA: it has a positive impact on the labor force participation and this impact is mainly driven by a much sharper impact on female labor force participation. Similarly, NREGA has a significant positive impact on the wages of female casual workers-real wages of female casual workers increased 8% more in NREGA districts compared with the increase experienced in non-NREGA districts. However, the impact of NREGA on wages of casual male workers has only been marginal (about 1%). Using data from pre-NREGA period, we also perform falsification exercise to demonstrate that the main conclusions are not confounded by pre-existing differential trends between NREGA and non-NREGA districts.

Land Inequality and Workfare Policies

This paper contributes to the relatively scant literature on the impacts of inequality on the efficacy of public works programmes. We study this in the context of India. In particular, we examine the effect of land inequality on the implementation of the world’s largest workfare programme – the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Our OLS estimates demonstrate that the concentration of land ownership reduces the efficacy of NREGA. An instrumental variable (IV) analysis, where we use the historical land tenure system as an IV for contemporaneous land inequality, further corroborates our findings. This negative relationship is consistent with the hypothesis that public work schemes raise agricultural wages in the private labour market, thereby incentivising big landlords to use their political power to oppose such programmes. We exclude the possibility that the higher provision of public jobs in more equal areas is driven by a higher demand for public jobs or by caste or religious differences. This study suggests that the concentration of land ownership, a proxy for power asymmetries, could hinder effective implementation of development policies.

Impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Scheme) on Unemployment and Village Economy (A Case Study of Mandor Block of Jodhpur District)

The basic means of promoting improvement of village economy have been to increase employment, open doors to the unemployed and under-use human resources. A diverse training process has been put in place to meet the needs of the poor by guaranteeing their fundamental rights and encouraging new unexpected household developments. To combat unemployment, desperation and job security with a multiplier seminar on the social capital system, physical capital, and ecological synergies, strengthening the democratic process and ensuring sustainable development, another program with clear pay was organized. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 and jointly implemented the states and organizational spaces of India in a course that was sponsored from February 2006. With its authentic cluster work and rights-based methodology, the National Gandhi Rural Employment (MGNREGA) grants every 100 days of safe work a farm. The MGNREGA is said to have raised and sustained the standard of people of village economy but as obvious questions are being raised on its reality rather than paper. This research paper aims to find out the effectiveness of the aforesaid programme on combating unemployment and improving the soul of India i.e. villages. For these purpose 50 grampanchayats of Mandor Block of Jodhpur District of Rajasthan state has been selected for the study and both primary data and secondary data was collected and analyzed using charts. The secondary data was collected from the website of government that provides data about MGNREGA and tabulated effectively to provide a conclusion about the impact of the programme and its weaknesses along with the suggestions if required.

Chasing Rights in Delhi: Social Movements and the National Food Security Act

In the 2000s, “rights-based approaches” to development acquired prominence in national level social policy in India. From 2005 to 2013, the Indian parliament passed several laws that effectively created new legal “rights.” This included a national legislation on the “right to work” under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) enacted in 2005 and a National Food Security Act (NFSA) on the “right to food” enacted in 2013. In text, rights created under these legislations expanded the idea of citizenship by defining justiciable claims that could be made against the state. The enactment of these legislations drew on a history of collective action and litigation centered on constitutional law and created the possibility of a new, progressive politics. Yet this positive expansion of citizenship rights has in recent years encountered a backlash and a de facto reigning in of rights. Part of this erosion of rights has been due to the Aadhaar based digital technologies using biometrics that were introduced as a key tool of implementation of social protection programs implemented under laws such as the NREGA and NFSA. Despite the present context of Aadhaar based erosion of citizenship rights, and the specter of coded and precarious citizenship, this paper argues that challenges to implementation of social policy need to be viewed in perspective. The role of social movements has been fundamental to the emergence of the aforementioned policies and legislations. Moving forward, the role of civil society actors in demanding probity in implementation of social policy, and in the reclaiming of citizenship, is critical for ensuring that new rights legislations retain their progressive potential.

Distress migration and employment in indigenous Odisha, India: Evidence from migrant-sending households.

We convey responses from migrant-sending households in western Odisha from interviews on migration conducted during the lockdown. The majority of migrants are indigenous (referred to as Scheduled Tribes or STs in India), come from very poor households and have little or no education. Prior to the lockdown, the majority of migrants engaged in seasonal, temporary migration—working in dangerous, informal, low-skilled odd jobs for low wages for a few months to supplement incomes at home the rest of the year. Lack of local employment alternatives is cited as the primary reason behind migration. After the lockdown, in the absence of income from migration, households with former migrants hope to earn a livelihood locally—with assistance from National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India’s public works program. Besides providing employment, NREGA works can include physical and health infrastructure which improve connectivity of health workers. NREGA works can also include community assets, such as facilities for irrigation, rainwater harvesting and plantations as well as child-care centers under India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program. We posit that in the long run, this can improve health, education levels and livelihoods of the local communities, addressing not only the immediate need for local employment but also distress migration in the future.

Consumption and Time-Use Effects of India’s Employment Guarantee and Women’s Participation

This paper examines the effects of the number of days worked by households under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on expenditure patterns, food security, and individual time use. I use plausible exogenous variation in administrative bottlenecks regarding the timing of work provision as an instrument for the number of days worked. The paper finds that a greater number of days worked increases household food expenditure and especially spending on dairy, proteins, and vegetables that are likely to raise children’s nutritional status. Household food security is also found to improve. These effects seem to be because of the greater participation of women relative to men in the program. Greater adult participation in NREGA raises the time spent in school for younger girls. Importantly, women’s engagement in domestic chores as their major activity is found to fall. However, older boys are found to substitute for adults in agricultural work. Although girls are unlikely to substitute for adults in performing domestic tasks due to greater adult participation in NREGA, the increased engagement of boys in agricultural work is a plausible unintended consequence of the program.