The Impact of Nrega on the Living Condition of Rural Poor

IMPACT OF MGNREGA ON THE LIVING CONDITION OF RURAL POOR

A STUDY IN THE BARPETA AND MORIGAON DISTRICTS OF ASSAM

WRITE UP FOR PRESENTATION IN FINAL REGISTRATION SEMINAR FOR Ph.D DEGREE UNDER GAUHATI UNIVERSITY

BY
HIMANGSHU KALITA

SUPERVISER
GOPAL BARDOLOI

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Poverty and unemployment are two acute problems common to most of the underdeveloped economies for which the government, planners, economists, politicians, scientists and researchers in these economies are putting their heads together for a solution. India is not an exception in this regard. Attainment of higher economic growth is not possible without efforts at employment generation and income augmentation. The population of rural India is more vulnerable due to socio-economic backwardness. Due to lack of adequate gainful employment opportunities they become excessively dependant on agricultural sector, which further adds fuel to the fire.

In the past, a number of schemes have provided temporary employment in public works programmes at the government’s discretion, but the present day scenario brings with it legislation and rights-based approach for implementing pro-people development policies on the country. Therefore, the world’s biggest employment guarantee scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) comes into force in India from February 2005. The main objective of MGNREGA is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Many of the available literatures are skeptical about the proper implementation of National Employment Guarantee Scheme. Some of the authors feel that the government lacks adequate capacity to implement EGS without large leakages and corruption. These fears are genuine as there were problems regarding implementation of these scheme in the past.

A survey of women workers in north Indian states conducted by Khera and Nayak (2008) found that in many states women participation is much lower than what is prescribed by the law. But the participants felt that MGNREGA employment offer a new sense of independence to women. Payments of MGNREGA wages through bank is considered as ‘magic pill’ for ending corruption.

A critical study by Kumar (2009) observed that different wages are paid in different states and funds are not properly utilized in some states. Amar (2011) observed that MGNREGA has had a ripple effect in the areas where the rural workforce would migrate to and has been the single most effective mechanism to push up wages for agricultural labour, i.e it helps in stopping or at least slowing down migration of rural workforce to urban areas.

Akhtar (2012 ) points out that the ecological aspect is one of the best features of the MGNREGA as it designates imbalance between human and natural resources creating a sustainable economic security through green jobs. MGNREGA has also been able to contribute to ecological restoration through its design.

Ahirrao (2010) observed that the utilization of resources available with the state government is also an important indicator to measure the success of the state in implementing the MGNREGA. The states those are able to utilize more resources reflect that on an average, they have been able to produce more person days of work and create more infrastructure in the villages.

Analysing Bhalla’s (2012) index of state level corruption on MGNREGA, Ravallion (2012) comments that though there is corruption in the implementation of MGNREGA, simple indices that claim to measure corruption and make an assessment of interstate levels of corruption can end up offering us a wrong understanding.

In an overview on food security in India, Behera NK (2012) observed that income generating programme like MGNREGA has helped in providing support to fight against hunger and food security. Though, a major breakthrough has been achieved in eliminating mass hunger or famine, food insecurity among the actual BPL community of the country still prevailed. The concept of food security refers to an all time access of food to all sections of population in the country.

NREGA (Doug Johnson, Sept, 2009) doesn’t just provide money to poor households; it provides money when they need it most, that is, when they are hit hard with bad weather.

North East Social Trust (NEST) carried out a research (2010) and found that BPL families have failed to get a job card and get registered in the state which is the prime objective of the Act.

In a study at Bihar (Chanchal Charan, 2012) it is found that MGNREGA ranks among the most powerful initiative ever undertaken for transformation of rural livelihood in India. The family income improved by NREGA programme and it is one of the best poverty eradication programmes in India (Gundegowda etl, 2012)

Many literature published in the news paper and weekly magazine discussed about the misuse of the act and due to proper information among the people and monitoring system sometime it fails to catch the needy people. Therefore, it is important to find out the loopholes of the Act so that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act can become the largest employment opportunities for the poor people and through inclusive growth every Indian can get food for their work.

OBJECTIVES:

The following are the objectives of the present study:-. 1. To assess the effectiveness of the scheme in creation of additional employment and additional income to the rural poor. 2. To analyse the problems faced by the implementing agencies as well as beneficiaries and to identify the administrative drawbacks. 3. To examine the changes in socio-economic conditions of rural poor after the implementation of MGNREGA. 4. To study the impact of MGNREGA on rural labour market and wage rate. 5. To suggest suitable remedial measures for overcoming the drawbacks.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: The study proposes to enquire upon the following questions:

1. Whether the MGNREGA has been successful in giving adequate employment to the rural poor? 2. Whether the job card holder and the implementing agencies, namely Panchayat, are facing any problem in materializing the scheme? 3. Whether the job card holder has been able to create additional income, get 100 days employment and create assets by doing MGNREGA job? 4. Is there any impact on labour supply market and wage rate in rural area after implementation of mgnrega? 5. What types of administrative drawbacks exists during the implementation of the Act?
METHODOLOGY
AREA OF FIELD STUDY The field study will be mainly in Barpeta District and a comparison with Morigaon District of Assam. Selection of the two districts is done by using secondary data of the Districts in the NREGA website in 2010-11. The people of the Districts mainly depend on agriculture, but due to poor infrastructure and poor irrigational facilities, cultivators are engaged in agricultural activities only during the monsoon session only. Therefore, the people are unemployed and poor. Since there is no big industry in the nearby town they can’t get work and become unemployed most of the time of the year.
SELECTION OF DISTRICTS
The two Districts Barpeta and Morigaon is purposively selected on the basis of the following grounds. i) During 2010-11 highest number of job card (2, 50,235) was issued in Barpeta among all the Districts Assam. ii) Barpeta District is industrially backward, because there is no big industry and industrial estate in the district. iii) Morigaon is the second smallest rural District of Assam after Hailakandi, but in morigaon number of villages is more (632) than Hilakandi(331). iv) Morigaon District is one of the most flood prone regions in the State. v) In Morigaon District, second highest number of person day was generated (23.35) after Dhemaji (24.25).
I. PERIOD OF STUDY The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) started from Sept. 2005. The study covers a period of six years, from financial year 2006-07 to 2011-12.

II. DATA SOURCE The study will be based on both primary and secondary data. The secondary data shall be gathered from various published and unpublished, official and unofficial sources. The primary data shall be collected by conducting sample survey.

III. SAMPLE DESIGN: The field study will be conducted at four levels i.e district, block, panchayat and village applying sample survey method. From each district two development blocks selected purposively and from each development block two panchayats will be selected purposively. One block will be selected on the basis of lowest cumulative number of HH provided employment during 2010-11 and second one is from minority or tribal area. Similarly one panchayat will be selected on the basis of lowest cumulative number of HH provided employment during 2010-11 and second one is from minority or tribal area. From each panchayat two villages will be selected in consultation with the president/secretary of concern panchayat for collecting field data. After that job card holder individual household will be selected randomly for in-depth study of the impact of development particularly that of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). ______________BARPETA_____________ __ BAJALI GOBARDHANA_____
HORIPUR GP BAGHMARA GP BILASHIPARA GP GOBARDHANA GP
IV. SAMPLE SIZE: In every Gram Panchayat 40 beneficiaries from two different villages will be selected on random selection basis from the list of job card holders/beneficiaries available with GP office. The total number of household will be 320 i.e. 20 from each village.
V. LINE OF ANALYSIS: The study is both empirical and analytical one. The study shall made use of both primary and secondary data, though emphasis will be on primary data collected from field through canvassing two structured interview Schedule/ Questionnaire among job card holders and panchayat officials. The field data will be cross examined with available official statistics. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative method of research will be used.

|Objectives |Data source |Line of analysis |
|1.To assess the effectiveness of the scheme in|Primary data |Descriptive and through table and graph. |
|creation of additional employment and | | |
|additional income to the rural poor. | | |
|2.To analyse the problems faced by the |Primary data |Descriptive and analytical |
|implementing agencies as well as beneficiaries| | |
|and to identify the administrative drawbacks. | | |
|3.To examine the changes in socio-economic |Primary and Secondary data |Trend analysis and table and graph. |
|conditions of rural poor after the | | |
|implementation of MGNREGA. | | |
|4.To suggest suitable remedial measures for |Primary and Secondary data |Descriptive |
|overcoming the drawbacks. | | |

V. VARIABLE USED IN THE STUDY: The main objective of the entire study is whether the MGNREGA is successful for employment generation and rising income, wages and quality of life among rural poor people. For this the field study is trying to bring out the impact of the scheme on various important attributes which contributes to the enhancement of quality of life such as i) income level before and after the scheme in vogue ii) Distribution of means of income of beneficiaries’ e.g. agriculture, daily wages, petty business etc. iii) Examine in expenditure pattern on food items after income generation through the present scheme, iv) Expenditure pattern on non food items before and after the implementation of the scheme v) Beneficiaries of the scheme having electricity connection vi) Land holding pattern of the beneficiaries of this scheme vii) Acquisition of movable and immovable assets by the beneficiaries during the year of implementation of the scheme viii) Status of household assets gathered before and after the scheme in vogue ix) Details of livestock creation prior to and after utilization of the scheme.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Poverty and inequality are the two major issues which effect the development of any country. India is no exception to this. Nearly three-fourth of India’s 1,128 million people lives in rural areas. More than 66 percent of the country’s labour force is engaged in agriculture and allied activities. Around 22 percent of India’s population in 2004-05 were estimated to be poor and living below the poverty line.

Unchecked population growth, shortage of land, fragmentation of land, inequitable distribution of income in the country and growing casual or unemployed labour force has all combined to increase rural poverty. Realizing the expedient association of casual wage labour and unemployment with poverty, political parties through their manifestos and planners in their plan documents have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the creation of new avenues of employment for the rural poor with a view to augmenting employment and generate incremental income. Creation of new job opportunities is important in providing work for unskilled labour force. It is necessary to reduce unemployment and raise productivity and earning of the working poor. It is important to keep growth in the centre of employment and poverty reduction strategy. While the need for selective and well targeted programmes for direct attack on poverty in the short run is important, lay emphasis on growth, employment and poverty eradication strategy is necessary to develop a long term and sustainable solution to these problems.

Layout of the Thesis The thesis is divided into five chapters with different contents.

Chapter I: - In this chapter, there will be a brief discussion about unemployment problem in the rural areas of Assam. It includes the background of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its implementation in India and some of the major schemes implemented in different five year plan and its emphasis on employment generation. Review of literature, the objective of the study, research quarries, and research methodology, limitation of the study and tools and technique of analysis will also be included and socio-economic profile of the two districts. Chapter II: - The second chapter includes income generation, assets creation, impact on beneficiaries, family income etc. Chapter III: - The third chapter will be on difficulties faced by Panchayats and individual beneficiaries and also officials while implementing the scheme. Chapter V: - This will be the final chapter. It will be the principal chapter of field study and contains summery of findings, suggestions and conclusion.

PROGRESS OF WORK:
Review of literature has been done. The libraries of Gauhati University (Guwahati), Indian Institute of Bank Management (IIBM, Guwahati), Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE, Guwahati) and OKD Institute of Social Change and Development (Guwahati) have been visited. Preliminary drafting of literature review has been started.

Interview schedule/ questionnaire for the panchayat and job card holder have been drafted and field study is likely to be started shortly. The annual report of selected districts and panchayats has been collected. The name of the villages is also collected for the purpose of sampling.

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