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Has India’s Employment Guarantee Program Achieved Intended Targets?

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  • A. Amarender Reddy
  • Namrata Singha Roy
  • Divya Pradeep

Abstract

This paper explores the performance of the world’s largest employment guarantee program, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India, both nationally and through a sub-national-level comparison based on key performance indicators viz. (i) financial indicators, (ii) physical performance indicators, and (iii) inclusiveness indicators. The paper is based on administrative data taken from the Ministry of Rural Development from 2006 to 2019. Despite sharp increases in fund allocation, total expenditures, and utilization rates, there was deceleration in majority of physical performance indicators after 2016, including total person-days employment and person-days of employment per household, with wide variation in sub-national level implementation capabilities. The finding also rejects the falsity of saturation of MGNREGA work in the rural areas, which is reflected in a strong positive correlation between fund allocation and employment generation. Its broader objective of social safety net for vulnerable people in rural areas shows an achievement, although with some gaps in implementation. JEL classification: H53, J43, P25

Suggested Citation

  • A. Amarender Reddy & Namrata Singha Roy & Divya Pradeep, 2021. "Has India’s Employment Guarantee Program Achieved Intended Targets?," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:21582440211052281
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440211052281
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    2. Fischer, Harry W. & Ali, Syed Shoaib, 2019. "Reshaping the public domain: Decentralization, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and trajectories of local democracy in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 147-158.
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    4. N. Nagaraj & P.S. Srikantha Murthy & M. G. Chandrakanth & Madhusudan Bhattarai & Namrata Singha Roy, 2018. "Economic Impacts of MGNREGA in Dryland Region of India: A Meso and Micro Study in Selected States," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Madhusudan Bhattarai & P.K. Viswanathan & Rudra N. Mishra & Cynthia Bantilan (ed.), Employment Guarantee Programme and Dynamics of Rural Transformation in India, chapter 0, pages 265-287, Springer.
    5. Birner, Regina & Gayathridevi, K.G. & Raabe, Katharina & Schiffer, Eva & Sekher, Madhushree & Shilpi, Amrita, 2010. "How to overcome the governance challenges of implementing NREGA," IFPRI discussion papers 963, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. D. Narasimha Reddy & A. Amarender Reddy & Madhusudan Bhattarai & N. Nagaraj & Cynthia Bantilan, 2018. "MGNREGS Implementations and the Dynamics of Rural Labour Markets," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Madhusudan Bhattarai & P.K. Viswanathan & Rudra N. Mishra & Cynthia Bantilan (ed.), Employment Guarantee Programme and Dynamics of Rural Transformation in India, chapter 0, pages 71-101, Springer.
    7. Narayanan, Sudha & Das, Upasak & Liu, Yanyan & Barrett, Christopher B., 2017. "The “Discouraged Worker Effect” in Public Works Programs: Evidence from the MGNREGA in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 31-44.
    8. Nagaraj, N. & Bantilan, Cynthia & Pandey, Lalmani & Roy, Namrata Singha, 2016. "Impact of MGNREGA on Rural Agricultural Wages, Farm Productivity and Net Returns: An Economic Analysis Across SAT Villages," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 71(2), June.
    9. Das, Upasak & Maiorano, Diego, 2019. "Post-clientelistic initiatives in a patronage democracy: The distributive politics of India’s MGNREGA," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 239-252.
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    12. Rhonda Breitkreuz & Carley‐Jane Stanton & Nurmaiya Brady & John Pattison‐Williams & E.D. King & Chudhury Mishra & Brent Swallow, 2017. "The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: A Policy Solution to Rural Poverty in India?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35(3), pages 397-417, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Anugu Amarender Reddy & Anindita Sarkar & Yumiko Onishi, 2022. "Assessing the Outreach of Targeted Development Programmes—A Case Study from a South Indian Village," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-22, July.
    2. Tara Bedi & Lukas Kuld, 2024. "Accountability in the delivery of guaranteed employment through MGNREGA in rural India," Working Papers WP012024, University of Limerick, Department of Economics.
    3. Narayan Chandra Nayak & Bimal Kishore Sahoo & Alok Ranjan Mohanty, 2023. "Do Mahatma Gandhi NREGA and convergence measures arrest distress migration? An empirical assessment of the migration-prone regions of Odisha, India," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-22, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social protection; MGNREGA; rural labor; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • P25 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics

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