Impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on Rural Households: A Case Study in Davanagere District of Karnataka

Abstract

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been playing an important role in employment generation and poverty alleviation in rural India. It was “an Act to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members’ volunteer to do unskilled manual work and for matters connected or incidental thereto”. In this paper, an effort has been made to evaluate the changes in terms of employment level, income level, expenditure pattern, savings pattern, and living standard of the sample beneficiaries in the study area between pre- MGNREGP and post- MGNREGP period; and to offer policy measures to improve the performance of the MGNREG program in generating rural livelihood. The present study is mainly based on primary data collected directly from the selected sample beneficiaries of MGNREGP through personal interviews. Simple statistical tools like averages, ratios, percentages have been employed for the analysis. The main findings reveal that the proportion of employment generation, income generation, average expenditure, and savings, and assets creation were found to be quite significant in the post-MGNREGP period as compared to that of in pre-MGNREGP period in the study areas.

Similarly, the MGNREGP has made a positive impact on the living standard of sample beneficiaries in the study areas. Based on the findings, the study suggested that the statutory 100 days of employment per adult member of the rural household should be guaranteed instead of 100 days per rural household. This would help to improve the income level of households who mainly depend on MGNREGP for their livelihood, and the performance of MGNREGP in backward (Jagalur) taluk is low. Therefore the officials should take for effective implementation of the program in the backward areas.