IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/39270.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Implementation of NREGA in Maharashtra: experiences, challenges and ways forward

Author

Listed:
  • Deepak, Shah

Abstract

There has been a spate of studies designed to assess the performance of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) ever since the Act relating to it came into being in August 2005. While some studies have debunked this nation-wide programme, others are seen to endorse it on the grounds that it will transform the lives of poor and make them aware of their entitlement. The present investigation therefore attempts to evaluate the implementation of NREGA in the state of Maharashtra with emphasis on coverage of households, employment guaranteed, works undertaken, strengths, bottlenecks and strategies for further strengthening the programme. Although there has always been a debate about the effectiveness of NREGA in terms of coverage of the target group, and also it is criticized on two grounds that it is expensive and corruption will not allow it to succeed, the experience of Maharashtra shows that it is partly true. The scheme is successful in terms asset creation, watershed development, prevention of draught, large scale administration of rural public works and reduction in large scale migration. The scheme is also successful in terms of coverage of weaker sections of the society. However, the major problem relates to the employment generation as the mandays generated and the number households provided 100 days of employment are quite low in almost all the districts of Maharashtra. With the sole exception of providing employment opportunities to the weaker sections of the society, the Act has not been able to succeed in any of its other provisions. In Maharashtra, only 34 per cent households registered under NREGA received job cards, which is quite a low proportion. The wages offered under NREGA are low in several districts of the state, which could be due to improper methods of measurement of productivity. The other problems relating to wages encompass lack of information on the part of workers about wage rates for different kinds of work in different types of terrain, lack of their bargaining power, fudging of muster rolls leading to low wage payment, difficulty in understanding the mode of payment-mix of cash and kind as prescribed in Maharashtra, etc. However, the NREGA is much better scheme than any other employment related programmes. It has still to do a lot of catching to make its presence felt in different parts of the country. The linking of employment guarantee schemes with other schemes of public works will certainly improve skill levels among workers, though this will require improved levels of coordination in the public sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Deepak, Shah, 2012. "Implementation of NREGA in Maharashtra: experiences, challenges and ways forward," MPRA Paper 39270, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:39270
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/39270/1/MPRA_paper_39270.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghav Gaiha & Vani Kulkarni & Manoj Pandey & Katsushi Imai, 2009. "National rural employment guarantee scheme, poverty and prices in rural India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0908, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    2. Pasquale Scandizzo & Raghav Gaiha & Katsushi Imai, 2009. "Option Values, Switches, and Wages: An Analysis of the Employment Guarantee Scheme in India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 248-263, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shah, Deepak K. & Mohanty, Sovna, 2010. "Implementation of NREGA During Eleventh Plan in Maharashtra: Experiences, Challenges and Ways Forward," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 65(3), pages 1-12.
    2. Clément Imbert & John Papp, 2012. "Equilibrium Distributional Impacts of Government. Employment Programs: Evidence from India's Employment Guarantee," Working Papers halshs-00680451, HAL.
    3. Raghav Gaiha & Vani Kulkarni & Manoj Pandey & Katsushi Imai, 2009. "National rural employment guarantee scheme, poverty and prices in rural India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0908, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    4. Zhigang Zheng & Li-An Zhou & Yanmei Sun & Chao Chen, 2016. "Executive Compensation and Legal Investor Protection: Evidence from China's Listed Firms," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 39-47, February.
    5. Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Shylashri Shankar & Manoj K Pandey, 2013. "Targeting Accuracy of the NREG: Evidence from Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 25(5), pages 758-777, December.
    6. Imai, Katsushi S. & Gaiha, Raghav & Thapa, Ganesh, 2015. "Does non-farm sector employment reduce rural poverty and vulnerability? Evidence from Vietnam and India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 47-61.
    7. Raghav Gaiha, 2004. "Is There a Case for the Employment Guarantee Scheme in India? Some Recent Evidence," ASARC Working Papers 2004-09, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    8. R Gaiha & K Imai, 2005. "A Review of the Employment Guarantee Scheme in India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0513, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    9. R Gaiha & K Imai, 2006. "Vulnerability and poverty in rural India-estimates for rural south India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0602, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    10. Margaret Grosh & Carlo del Ninno & Emil Tesliuc & Azedine Ouerghi, 2008. "For Protection and Promotion : The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6582.
    11. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Woojin Kang & Samuel Annim & Ganesh Thapa, 2012. "Does Risk Matter? A Semi-parametric Model for Educational Choices in the Presence of Uncertainty," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1226, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    12. Hazrul Shahiri & Kamal Azri Husin & Wye Chung Khain, 2023. "The Effect of Job Rotation in a Fixed Wage Setting Model," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, February.
    13. Subhasish Dey & Katsushi S. Imai, 2014. "Workfare as "Collateral": The case of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India," Discussion Paper Series DP2014-27, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Mar 2015.
    14. Thankom Arun & Katsushi Imai & Frances Sinha, 2006. "Does the Microfinance Reduce Poverty in India? Propensity Score Matching based on a National-level Household Data," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0625, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    15. Klonner, Stefan & Oldiges , Christian, 2014. "Safety Net for India's Poor or Waste of Public Funds? Poverty and Welfare in the Wake of the World's Largest Job Guarantee Program," Working Papers 0564, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Implementation NREGA Maharashtra;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:39270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.