Household Level Impact Assessment of MGNREGA Scheme

Abstract

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MGNREGA) has been notified by the Government of India on 7th September 2005 with the primary objective of enhancing the livelihood security of the unskilled labors in the rural areas of the country by providing guaranteed wage employment to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The MGNREGA, which is one of the flagship projects of the government, promises 100 days of work per year to the unemployed at a CPI inflation-indexed wage rate. As there is an increase in the disposable income on account of the implementation of the scheme, it is expected that the standard of living and the expenditure pattern of the household covered under the MGNREGA scheme would undergo a tremendous change. As most of the expenditure of the rural households covered under the scheme is supposed to be drastically changed, it is felt that there is a need to study the impact of the scheme on these households. This paper is an extract from a Ph. D Thesis titled Household and Village Level Impact of MGNREGS on Governance at the Grassroots: An Assessment of Gram Panchayats in Tamil Nadu. Submitted to the Gandhigram Rural Institute – Deemed to be University.