MGNREGA Bibliography

Abstract

Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme a large social security programme being implemented in India, with an average annual investment of US$ 7 billion. The bulk of the activities under this programme are focused on natural resources such as land, water and trees, which provide adaptation benefits. In this study an attempt is made to estimate the carbon sequestration achieved and future potential, as a co-benefit, from MGNREGS. The total mean carbon sequestered at the national level, considering the cumulative number of natural resource based activities, for the year 2017–18 was estimated to be 102 MtCO2. The annual mean carbon sequestration is projected to increase to about 132 MtCO2 by 2020 and 249 MtCO2 by 2030. Drought proofing is one of the activities implemented under MGNREGS and it includes tree planting, relevant to achieving the NDC carbon sink target. The cumulative carbon sink created by drought proofing activities is projected to be 56 MtCO2 in 2020, 281 MtCO2 in 2025 and 561 MtCO2 in 2030. This study demonstrates the significant carbon sink potential of MGNREGS and highlights the importance of estimation and reporting climate mitigation co-benefits of adaptation actions such as MGNREGS under the Paris Agreement.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251...

Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

The Government of India introduced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to provide employment to unskilled labourers, especially those in dire circumstances. MGNREGA is one of the best among the successful social welfare programmes in India. For the study, a total of 30 beneficiaries belonging to one Gram Panchayat, who actively participated in the labour work under MGNREGA during a three-year period from 2014-15,2015-16 and 2016-17, were identified. In addition, 10 MGNREGA job card holders, who either participated for less than 10 days or never participated during the study period, were identified to assess the impact of their non-participation. The study selected a total of 21 GPs. Hence, the total sample size was 840. Majority of the actively participating households owned less than three acres of land, and the remaining were landless. In the case of inactive participation households, a majority possessed more than three acres. Among the activities, the MGNREGA wage income occupied third place whereas the agriculture sector contributed enormously for the inactive households. The average MGNREGA wage income was higher in SC households than other social groups.

https://doi.org/10.25175/jrd/2021/v40/i5/170696

Quantitative Wages

Abstract

Diving into an original and unusually positive case study from India, Patching Development shows how development programs can be designed to work. How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from entrenched local power systems. In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan presents an ethnography of one of the largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines NREGA’s implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He finds that the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development. “Patching development” is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process that makes local information about implementation visible through technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents, institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. A highly original account with global significance, this book casts new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology in novel ways to implement development programs.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/patching-development-978019756...

Caste Implementation Politics

Abstract

Poverty and unemployment remain the main issue in India. These issues are mostly found in rural areas. The Government of India has been formulating various programs for rural growth and poverty eradication. One such programmed is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a successful program in promoting gender equality, empowering women, and creating long-lasting infrastructure in rural areas providing employment. The study was conducted in the Kaithal district of Haryana covering a sample of 100 beneficiaries. The collected data has been analyzed using simple frequency and percentage analysis, descriptive analysis, and correlation analysis. The results have revealed that the program was successful in empowering the women of the district.

https://doi.org/10.54099/ijibmr.v1i1.41

Gender Poverty Quantitative

Abstract

This paper explores the aggregate economic effects from India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which provides up to 100 days of labor to rural laborers at the mandated minimum wage. We examine the within-district change to nighttime lights, a proxy for economic development, and banking deposits using the staggered program rollout for identification. We find consistent and robust evidence that NREGS increased aggregate economic output by 1% to 2% per capita measured by nighttime lights. This effect, however, is not equal across districts. We observe no positive effect of the program in poorer districts, illuminating an important source of heterogeneity.

https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/104/4/797/97717/Aggregate...

Poverty Wages

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of the number of days worked by households under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on expenditure patterns, food security, and individual time use. I use plausible exogenous variation in administrative bottlenecks regarding the timing of work provision as an instrument for the number of days worked. The paper finds that a greater number of days worked increases household food expenditure and especially spending on dairy, proteins, and vegetables that are likely to raise children’s nutritional status. Household food security is also found to improve. These effects seem to be because of the greater participation of women relative to men in the program. Greater adult participation in NREGA raises the time spent in school for younger girls. Importantly, women’s engagement in domestic chores as their major activity is found to fall. However, older boys are found to substitute for adults in agricultural work. Although girls are unlikely to substitute for adults in performing domestic tasks due to greater adult participation in NREGA, the increased engagement of boys in agricultural work is a plausible unintended consequence of the program.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/702789?journalCode=...

Gender Quantitative

Abstract

In India, politicians facing criminal charges are routinely elected at higher rates. In this dissertation, I investigate three primary questions to better understand criminal politicians’ electoral success and performance in office: 1) Do criminal politicians deliver superior access to social welfare programs relative to clean politicians? 2) Do criminal politicians target benefits to co-partisans at higher rates than clean politicians? 3) Do voters reward criminal politicians for delivering more constituency service than clean politicians? On the one hand, powerful dons may be less responsive to voters’ needs, banking on clout to keep voters in line. On the other hand, previous literature and my fieldwork suggest a more Machiavellian strategy, where criminal politicians use both violence and deep pockets to distribute resources to voters.

I present two key arguments to explain criminal politicians’ distributive advantages. First, I contend that criminal politicians core assets of money, muscle and networks make them particularly suited to both deliver more state benefits and target co-partisans. Second, I identify a trade-off that candidates face between accruing enough capital to fund campaigns and remaining rooted in the constituency to provide personalized service to voters. I argue that criminals’ muscle-power allows them to sidestep this trade-off and optimize on both dimensions. Muscle enables criminals to establish lucrative protection rackets in their home constituencies. In effect, protection rackets turn muscle into money. To protect this money, criminals invest in networks for delivering resources to voters. Constituent service networks help criminal politicians maintain political power, which proves useful for protecting their illegal enterprises.

To measure criminal politicians’ in-office performance, I focus on how India’s state legislators influence the delivery of the world’s largest public works program, India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Specifically, to determine if criminal politicians translate their assets of money, muscle and networks into superior social welfare delivery, I construct and combine three original datasets. First, to measure criminality, I scraped self-disclosed affidavits listing 87,000 candidates’ criminal charges. The dataset details the criminal histories, wealth, and electoral results of all state legislative candidates in India between 2003 and 2017 (N = 87,000). To measure criminal politicians’ benefit distribution, I combine the candidate dataset with original data on the geo-locations of over 20 million NREGS local public works projects. Finally, to determine if criminal politicians are more likely to target resources to co-partisans, I map the geotagged NREGS projects to over 400,000 polling stations. Methodologically, I use causal inference and machine learning techniques to analyze this data and strengthen the validity of my estimates.

Overall, I find that criminal politicians deliver more NREGS benefits in safe seats, though not necessarily in competitive constituencies. Second, I find suggestive evidence that criminal politicians target welfare benefits to co-partisans at higher rates relative to clean politicians. By remaining embedded in the constituency, I argue that criminals are better positioned to identify, and then meet, supporters needs. Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I find criminals’ core advantage derives from their capacity for violence. Both qualitative and quantitative evidence speak to criminal muscle as a necessary input for improved constituency service and benefit delivery. Empirically, I find that criminals with violent charges are associated with increased NREGS delivery. Whereas, non-violent criminals are not.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8911504b

Challenges Corruption Qualitative Quantitative

Abstract

Can e-governance reforms improve government policy? By making information available on a real-time basis, information technologies may reduce the theft of public funds. We analyze a large field experiment and the nationwide scale-up of a reform to India’s workfare program. Advance payments were replaced by “just-in-time” payments, triggered by e-invoicing, making it easier to detect misreporting. Leakages went down: program expenditures dropped by 24 percent, while employment slightly increased; there were fewer fake households in the official database; and program officials’ personal wealth fell by 10 percent. However, payment delays increased. The nationwide scale-up resulted in a persistent 19 percent reduction in program expenditure.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20180302

Challenges Corruption Implementation

Abstract

Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economies rendering millions without employment. A number of countries have turned to labour market interventions to protect workers. India leverages on a workfare programme, the MGNREGA, to provide a fallback option for workers in rural areas. Established long before the pandemic and designed to be demand-driven and self-targeting, we examine its expansion in 2020 as a COVID-19 response. We combine monthly administrative data with district-level data on migration and multidimensional poverty. We test whether the additional person-days in public works employment generated are distributed across districts in ways that are commensurate with their population shares of out-migration and poverty. This yields four major findings. First, poorer districts appear to have extended the programme to include more households, i.e expanded on the extensive margin. Second though, this does not seem to hold for districts with a high proportion of all out-migrants in the country. While these districts account for 72.2 of all out-migrants, they account for only 54.8 of the person-days generated. Third, in these districts, unmet demand for work is higher than elsewhere. Given widespread administrative rationing, of 22.7 in the period May-August 2020, the increase in person-days has been as much on the intensive margin as it has been on the extensive margin. Fourth, the person-days generated per rural household suggest that the expansion is far from adequate in serving the large number of households likely pushed into economic distress in specific districts. Between May and August 2020, the employment guarantee provided 31 days per working household, yet this is equivalent to just 13.5 days per rural household. Districts that are poor or account for a higher out-migration share are not differentially ramping up the programme; instead implementation patterns are consistent with past records of person-days generated or rationing rates. Notwithstanding the impressive expansion of the workfare programme, it needs continued funding and attention to fulfill its promise as a credible safety net, especially in districts that need it most.

https://ideas.repec.org/p/ind/igiwpp/2020-034.html

Implementation Poverty Quantitative

Abstract

Villagers in Tiruppur district in Tamil Nadu, India’s largest knitwear manufacturing and export hub, face different levels of hardship due to the lockdown in the wake of COVID-19. This article details the coping strategies of garment, power loom, and agricultural workers in two villages—Allapuram and Mannapalayam.

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/fifty-days-lockdown-india-view-two-v...

Gender Poverty Wages

Abstract

Using establishment-level data, we examine the impact of the Indian government’s employment guarantee program on labor and firm behavior. We exploit the staggered implementation of the program for identification and find that the program led to a 10% reduction in the permanent workforce in firms. Firms responded to the adverse labor-supply shock by resorting to increased mechanization. This significantly increased the firms’ cost of production, leading to a decline in net profits and productivity. These effects manifested primarily in firms paying low wages, firms having low labor productivity and greater sales volatility, and firms located in states with pro-employer labor regulations.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-financial-and-quant...

Implementation Quantitative Wages

Abstract

To generate livelihood opportunities for the millions of migrant workers who returned to their villages during the COVID-19-induced lockdown and stem distress migration in the future, the government will need to strengthen its rural jobs scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS), say experts. This will mean more funds for the scheme, doubling of the work days guaranteed under it and inclusion of new categories of work, our analysis shows.

https://www.indiaspend.com/how-rural-jobs-scheme-can-be-improved-to-he...

Implementation Qualitative

Abstract

This study attempts to quantify the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act programme on the level and pattern of consumption expenditure of rural households at the national level using a difference-in-differences method. The findings indicate an increase in the monthly per capita consumption expenditure of participant households and a change in their consumption patterns with the share of high-value and nutrient-rich food in their consumption basket going up. Further the participant households have also smoothened their consumption by investing in assets such as durable goods.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/39/notes/impact-mgnrega-consumption-ex...

Budget Quantitative

Abstract

This study attempts to quantify the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act programme on the level and pattern of consumption expenditure of rural households at the national level using a difference-in-differences method. The findings indicate an increase in the monthly per capita consumption expenditure of participant households and a change in their consumption patterns with the share of high-value and nutrient-rich food in their consumption basket going up. Further the participant households have also smoothened their consumption by investing in assets such as durable goods.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/39/notes/impact-mgnrega-consumption-ex...

Quantitative

Abstract

Evidence on the implementation of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act suggests that the available work is often rationed by local leaders in poor areas, and that this is an important factor limiting the scheme’s impact on poverty. The paper offers explanations for this empirical finding, with likely relevance to other decentralized, rights-based programs. It is shown that rationing of work opportunities can arise under decentralized implementation in poor places even when the center wants to honor the employment guarantee. Two main drivers of such rationing are identified: local administrative costs and local corruption. Administrative reforms by the center can have perverse effects. Policy implications are drawn for how to better assure that the stipulated rights are attained in practice.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3359487

Corruption Implementation Poverty

Abstract

Self-targeting features of a universal job guarantee make it a long-term policy option to protect informal workers in urban India.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/104542

Urban

Abstract

This report focuses on the last mile challenges faced by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers in accessing their wages after the wages have been credited to the workers’ bank or postal accounts. It is based on a survey of 1947 workers conducted in the first half of the financial year 2018-19 in one block each of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Rajasthan (RJ) and two blocks of Jharkhand (JH). The report addresses workers’ awareness about some banking norms, access to information, hardships in accessing wages, transparency and accountability of disbursement agencies, issues concerning payments that get rejected and the workers’ experience of using grievance redressal systems. It offers a set of recommendations for improvement.

https://digitalwages.org/insights/length-of-the-last-mile-delays-and-h...

Challenges Wages

Abstract

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is a flagship scheme of the Government of India (GoI) which aims to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year (FY) to every rural household that demands work. Using government reported data, this brief reports on: 1) Trends in allocations and expenditures; 2) Trends in employment provided and wages paid; 3) Physical assets created and status of work completion.

https://accountabilityindia.in/publication/mahatma-gandhi-national-rur...

Budget Quantitative Wages

Abstract

To run a job guarantee public policy scheme, it is important to know the aspiration level or the reference point of labor, and accordingly, the labor hour and the wage sequence are to be prepared. The existing job guarantee schemes consider the same wage rates for all types of jobs. As a result, it is to identify the reference point. The present work aims to propose a job guarantee scheme where different types of jobs have different wage rates. The paper explains the choice problem between labor and leisure at different wage rates and proposes complete computational tools to be incorporated into the job guarantee schemes. The paper also gives a mechanism to prepare the list of jobs and corresponding wage rates by maintaining a balance between labor and leisure, where productive activities measure labor hours and labor welfare measures leisure hours. Lastly, the paper provides the analytical tools to interpret the ex-post data of the job guarantee public policy schemes. Design/methodology/approach: The paper has been written based on the Coordination Game and its Welfare Implications in the job guarantee public policy schemes. Findings The present paper gives an initial work to measure the choice between labor and leisure for the different wage rates practically. This will help in getting the equilibrium strategies, namely, the combination of the labor hour and the wage rate between the policymaker and the labor. This method will help to implement the job guarantee schemes. For example, to run successfully the Basic Income policy, the basic income calculation should give due care; otherwise, there will be a downward trend in the basic income and the welfare of labor will be reduced, because the labor would have to supply excess labor to meet the target income.This paper derives theories and explains how the equilibrium in this coordination game can be achieved. The paper explains how the policy of the job guarantee schemes can be practiced practically. In the MGNREGA scheme, the public institution declares different categories of jobs with different wage rates. The categories have been classified with respect to the hours required to complete the job. Therefore, the public institution declares different lists or a sequence of pairs of labor hours and wage rates. Moreover, the list is stochastic, because the list can be changed by the inclusion of an offer from the market as well. The labor has to select from the list. The challenge on the part of the public institution is to prepare the list in such a way so that the inclusion of the market offers will not distort the equilibrium of the coordination game. An important method has been proposed here to analyze the ex-post data of job offers so that the preparation of the future sequence of the job offers can be prepared with due care. One objective of the policymaker here is to make a list of job offers in such a way so that the labor supply will be converging to a point and that will not deviate if the wage rate increases further. This objective will make a balance of the distribution of funds between the existing registered labor and the new entrants into the job guarantee schemes.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3737285

Quantitative Wages

Abstract

Covid-19 has ushered in a renewed focus on health, sanitisation and, in unexpected ways, on the need for productive employment opportunities in rural India. MGNREGA, the rural employment guarantee programme, has had a mixed track record in terms of providing adequate employment to those who need it the most, the quality of asset creation and adequacy of wages offered. This paper makes a case for reorienting a small portion of MGNREGA spending to create micro-entrepreneurs out of the ‘reverse migrating’ masons, electricians, plumbers and others in rural areas who can directly contribute to augmenting health and sanitization infrastructure in the likely new normal. This will provide relief to those whose livelihoods have been severely impacted and eventually lower dependence on public finances. We propose approval of a new work type for sanitization works without any hard asset creation under MGNREGA and roping in the private sector for its project management skills to quickly skill up the returning migrants as well as to match work with workers on an ongoing basis.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41027-020-00247-0

Implementation Wages

Abstract

The COVID-19 lockdown implemented in India is estimated to have tripled the urban unemployment rate. Most low-income urban workers will fall through the cracks of the provisions being put in place to support workers, and almost none of them has access to benefits. Swati Dhingra (LSE) argues that the self-targeting features of a universal job guarantee make it an appealing policy option to protect informal workers in urban India both now and in the longer term.

https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104579/1/covid19_2020_05_18_protecting_infor...

Urban

Abstract

For more than five years the Government has been lukewarm towards the MGNREGA. Yet, in the midst of the ongoing slowdown this very programme is a potentially effective instrument that it can and should use to address the economic emergency in rural areas.

https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/continuing-relevance-mgnrega

Challenges

Abstract

This paper uses a new field survey of low-wage areas of urban India to show that employment and earnings were decimated by the lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 crisis. It examines workers’ desire for a job guarantee in this setting. Workers who had a job guarantee before the crisis were relatively shielded by not being hit quite so hard in terms of the increased incidence of job loss or working zero hours and earnings losses. A stated choice experiment contained in the survey reveals evidence that low-wage workers are willing to give up around a quarter of their daily wage for a job guarantee. And direct survey questions corroborate this, with informal, young and female workers being most likely to want a job guarantee, and to want it even more due to the current crisis.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3723523#

Urban

Abstract

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme is one of the most important and largest public programme in India. The main objective of this programme is to provide 100 days of assured employment to rural household and to create sustainable asset. In this paper we have studied the objective of MGNREGA that is to reduce migration in light of rural perspective. From the literature as well as supported by the micro-assessment, MGNREGA is helping poor and weaker section of the community by providing employment at critical period of a year (seasonal migration). In principal, MGNREGA can help to reduce temporary migration but is ineffective in long period, when several factors would change together. Migration from rural to urban areas is occurring due to several reasons in India. Lack of employment opportunities in rural areas are one of the major reasons of migration to urban areas. Since independence, Government of India has introduced several programs with the aim of preventing migration from rural to urban areas, generating adequate employment opportunities and creating durable assets and infrastructure facilities in rural areas. One such major milestone program is MGNREGA introduced in February 2006 with the main objective of enhancing the livelihood security in rural areas through providing 100 employment guarantee days with minimum wage for every rural household who are willing to do unskilled manual work. The primary data have been collected through a household level survey by administering structured and unstructured questionnaires, with individual interviews. While the total number of households selected for the study is 240 for the analysis. Keeping in view the objectives of the study the data collected through the schedule has been analyzed and interpreted with the help of statistical tabulation method using average percentage, Mean, Chi square Test. This study investigates that how does the MGNREGA program impact on migration and employment in rural areas in Jodhpur district, Rajasthan State. Thus, we observe that while MGNREGA has played a significant role in reducing the distress, the program is yet to realize its full potential. Increasing trend in wage rates has led to increase in the participation of female workers after the implementation of MGNREGA. There is also increase in non-agricultural and construction wage rates. MGNREGA has worked towards better wage rates but the interplay of other factors resulted in lesser growth in agricultural wage rates during the MGNREGA programme period. It has played a significant role in providing food security. Getting better employment was the major cause of out migration in the study villages. MGNREGA has reduced the migration to some extent. MGNREGA has increased income of the participants. The spending has increased in domestic items, food, health care and housing. MGNREGA has increased awareness about other government schemes. All participants suggested that MGNREGA can be improved on fronts of timely payment, increased number of days and higher wage rate in tandem with inflation. Villagers appealed for proper measurement of work and fresh survey for allotment of new job cards. While some problems are linked with the development of infrastructure such as post offices etc., that would improve the access to the beneficiary households, other problems are linked to functional gaps such as lack of proper information dissemination.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5958/2249-7315.2020.00017.9

Urban

Abstract

Averting a humanitarian disaster in India calls for an explosion of NREGA work in the next few weeks

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-need-for-a-million-worksites...

Challenges Implementation

Abstract

Many developing countries use employment guarantee programs to combat poverty. This study examines the consequences of such employment guarantee programs for the human capital accumulation of children. It exploits the phased roll-out of India’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) to study the effects on enrollment in schools and child labor. Introduction of MGNREGA results in lower relative school enrollment in treated districts. It also finds that the drop in enrollment is driven by primary school children. Children in higher grades are just as likely to attend school under MGNREGA, but their school performance deteriorates. Using nationally representative employment data, the study finds evidence indicating an increase in child labor highlighting the unintentional perverse effects of the employment guarantee schemes for human capital.

https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/10.1093/wber/lhy027

Poverty Quantitative

Abstract

The rural coastal population of Njarakkal are dependent on fishing for their daily livelihood making them highly economically unstable. Both Kudumbashree and MGNREGA have been implemented in this area for the upliftment of this population especially women. Therefore, the objective of this study was to qualitatively analyze the impact of Kudumbashree and MGNREGA on the lives of women belonging to the rural coastal community of Njarakkal. A qualitative study consisting of Focused group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted on women belonging to the fishing community who were active members of both the Kudumbashree and MGNREGA program. Participation in Kudumbashree and MGNREGA was found to have a positive impact on the lives of these coastal women. They experienced social, economic and political empowerment along with an improvement in their leadership skills and decision making capacity. Their participation in these groups not only led to empowerment in various domains of their lives but also had an impact on their health awareness, needs and utilization of healthcare services. Both Kudumbashree and MGNREGA were found to very useful platforms for the empowerment of women and thereby aiding in the eradication of poverty. Irrespective of a few lacunae’s in these programs, it has resulted in the creation of a cohort of empowered women who can be effectively used as future ambassadors for spreading health awareness in the community.

https://journals.lww.com/jfmpc/fulltext/2019/08090/a_qualitative_analy...

Gender Politics Qualitative

Abstract

In order to promote the quality of programme administration and implementation, value for money, accountability and impact on poverty, a series of design and implementation innovations have been introduced under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Public Employment Programme (PEP) of India over the past 12 years. The key innovations are outlined and discussed in this paper.

https://socialprotection.org/discover/publications/introduction-mgnreg...

Implementation Poverty

Abstract

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of work in a year for every rural household at a minimum wage. Because of MGNREGA, for the first time in the country, a transaction-based management information system (MIS) has been made available in the public domain, a feather in the cap of transparency. An essential safeguard in MGNREGA is delay compensation to be paid when workers do not receive wages within 15 days of completion of work. Despite several attempted measures, payment delays are rampant and the method of calculating delay compensation is flawed leading to massive under-calculation of the true payable compensation. By analysing over 90 lakh transactions for the financial year 2016–2017 across 10 states, we observe that only 21% of the payments were made on time and the central government alone was taking an average of over 50 days to electronically transfer wages. On aggregate, in our sample, while the true total delay compensation payable is about Rs. 36 crores, only about Rs. 15.6 crores is being calculated in the MIS. The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has acknowledged the correctness of the findings and the Supreme Court of India has also issued Orders to the MoRD based on these findings.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41027-019-00164-x

Challenges Wages

Abstract

Can public interventions persistently reduce conflict? Adverse weather shocks, through their impact on incomes, have been identified as robust drivers of conflict in many contexts. An effective social insurance system moderates the impact of adverse shocks on household incomes, and hence, could attenuate the link between these shocks and conflict. This paper shows that a public employment program in India, by providing an alternative source of income through a guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages, effectively provides insurance. This has an indirect pacifying effect. By weakening the link between productivity shocks and incomes, the program uncouples productivity shocks from conflict, leading persistently lower conflict levels.

https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/133707/

Quantitative Wages

Abstract

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/14/letters/mgnrega-wages.html

Quantitative Wages

Abstract

The unprecedented decline in the absolute number of workers in the Indian economy in recent times has been a subject of debate and a matter of public concern. A closer look at the data for the period 2011–12 and 2017–18 shows that it is the net result of a dynamic process of job creation and destruction. Those who have lost jobs are all with low education, that is, less than secondary level of education. From a gender perspective, rural women workers are the net losers. From a social point of view, the net losers belong to two groups: Muslims and Hindu Other Backward Classes. These are clear signs of rural India in distress with strong gender and social dimensions.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/44/insight/jobless-job-loss-growth.htm...

Caste Challenges Gender

Abstract

We use a three-round, 4013-household panel from Andhra Pradesh, together with administrative data and village and population census data, to explore the welfare effects of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) on direct beneficiaries. NREGS participants in districts that had been exposed to the program for one year only significantly increased protein and energy intake while in districts with two-year exposure, participants were able to accumulate more nonfinancial assets. The benefits are most pronounced for scheduled casts/scheduled tribes and for the poor, in particular female headed households and households with disabilities. We also find that increased income from casual labor is the primary channel through which the effects are realized. We find no evidence that NREGS participation has resulted in higher private investment in land improvement.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.014

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of an income guarantee on borrowing in a risky setting with marked seasonality. A three-season, infinite-horizon model is developed, in which the aims of smoothing consumption and maintaining creditworthiness are somewhat opposed and the seasonal timing of transfers matters. If borrowing does not affect production, then larger transfers concentrated in the lean season may well lead to a contraction of the total amount borrowed over the whole annual cycle. If borrowing also finances working capital, then larger transfers make riskier positions attractive, and investment in working capital and total borrowing may both increase. These insights are tested in the context of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, as implemented in upland Odisha. The potential endogeneity of participation is addressed by using the female reservation for local elections as an instrument. Each day’s work reduces the estimated level of borrowing in the lean season by about the regulated wage. In contrast, the estimated effect on borrowing in the cultivation season by households owning at least the median holding is to increase it by about one-and-a-half times the wage; but there is no significant effect for households owning less.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecca.12325

Gender Quantitative Wages

Abstract

Corruption in NREGA works has steadily declined in recent years. There are important lessons here that need to be extended to other domains

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Learning-from-NREGA/article6211...

Corruption Implementation

Abstract

MGNREGA, India’s flagship rural workfare program, is one of the preeminent public entitlements to be linked to Aadhaar. The linking of Aadhaar to the MGNREGA wage payment process alters the existing path of payments to from State to the beneficiary. Aadhaar-linked wage payments under MGNREGA are routed through the Aadhaar Payments Bridge (APB) system, and into the beneficiary’s Aadhaar-seeded account. This Aadhaar-seeded account may or may not be the same as the beneficiary’s erstwhile MGNREGA-linked account. Accidental mismatch between these two accounts holds the ability to vastly diminish the beneficiary experience and impact further uptake of work under the scheme. This study aims to identify and describe patterns of misdirected payments in the state of Jharkhand from April 2014 to March 2018.

We utilize wage payment transaction data to compare the beneficiary’s preferred bank account with the Aadhaar-linked account as a measure of misdirection.

We find that the volume of APB transactions rise steadily in our four year period of analysis to achieve considerable penetration of Aadhaar-seeding. Further, there is evidence of beneficiaries switching back and forth on the APB platform. The mis-direction of funds is observed to affect 68% of all APB transactions in the state of Jharkhand. Of these transactions, 38% redirect wages to a completely unrelated account (the remainder being redirected to other beneficiaries in the same household). We further analyse temporal and geographic patterns in the occurrence of mismatch. Aadhaar-linkage with wage payments under MGNREGA has been underway across the country since 2013. Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfers are intended to curb leakages due to “ghost” beneficiaries.
The beneficiary’s Aadhaar-seeded bank account need not be the same as their erstwhile MGNREGA-linked account. Between April 2014 and March 2018, approximately 33.4 million wage payment transactions were made to beneficiaries in Jharkhand. Of these, 33.6% of were made via the Aadhaar Payments Bridge system. Since the introduction of Aadhaar-linkage, more than 1 million job cards have been deleted. Of these, we find approximately 400,000 job cards had availed work before deletion during the period of our analysis.

https://diri.isb.edu/en/community/blog-grid/choice-based-reforms-in-de...

Challenges Implementation Quantitative Wages

Abstract

Over the past three decades, governments around the world have undertaken reforms for decentralization. These reforms are founded on the belief that more democratic participation in local governance will lead to better outcomes for rural development, public service delivery, and environmental governance. However, the effects of these efforts have been highly variable in practice. Extensive literature has studied the factors associated with different outcomes of policy interest, yet we continue to lack knowledge of how local democracy evolves through changing power relationships over time. In this article, we draw together two dominant threads of scholarship, which have emphasized the social and institutional dimensions of democratic deepening respectively, to develop an analysis of local political change through the conceptual lens of the public domain. We define the public domain as comprising three distinct yet interrelated elements: (a) the citizens that are constituted as a “public”, (b) the collection of “public goods” that they are able to access, and (c) the means and channels by which they seek to influence decision-making. Through case studies of three local governments in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh, we show how the decentralized architecture of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)—the largest downward transfer of resources to local elected governments to date—has interacted with local histories of social and institutional change, leading to different trajectories of political transformation. While the devolution of resources under the MGNREGA has improved access to state resources and increased participation in development planning overall, the intensity, equity, and extent of influence varies according to the character of local political relationships. By offering a relational and processual understanding of how local governance evolves over time, the public domain lends new insight into the ways that decentralization is redefining citizenship through new articulations of the ‘public’ in local democracy.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.09.013

Environmental Sustainability Politics

Abstract

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) aimed at providing direct employment to the deserving rural people has been in operation for last many years. The present study had conducted to assess the role of NREGA programme with the following specific objectives: (i) To study socio-economic profile of the beneficiaries of NREGA (ii) To assess the contribution of NREGA in socio-economic development of its beneficiaries (iii) To identify the factors of success and failure (iv) To render suitable suggestions for further improvement in the NREGA programme. Research gap of this study was to analyze the profitability of social programmes being initiated by governments. Results showed Socio-economic profile of the respondents that most of the respondents were male, in the middle age group, hailing from Schedule Caste category and were having little education and low income level. The profile of beneficiaries of NREGA programme indicated that the benefits of this programme is going to the deserving people. Rural connectivity (repair of roads etc.), village cleanliness, plantation were the major areas in which the NREGA beneficiaries worked under the supervision of a Mate. The village Sarpanch proved to be the major person who made aware to the beneficiary and helped them to get employment under this programme. On an average beneficiary of NREGA got employment for 15 days in a month. All the beneficiaries of the NREGA programme got prescribed wage i.e. Rs.123 per day which was paid timely to the respondents. 1/5th of the respondents held that dependency on the farmers had reduced after joining NREGA programme and also wage rate had increased in other activities in villages due to the arrival of NREGA programme. 38 per cent of the respondents opined that NREGA activities helped them to remove idleness whereas 25 per cent of respondents felt more social recognized after joining NREGA. Overall the launching of NREGA programme had increased the demand for labour in rural areas. The non beneficiary of NREGA programme did not join the NREGA largely due to social inhibition (not ready to do labour in own village), low wage rate and irregularity of work. Irregular grants and work opportunities, less wage rate were the major constrains experienced by the beneficiaries of NREGA. Regularity in grants, generating adequate employment opportunity may prove more useful for NREGA beneficiary and society at large.

https://doi.org/10.9734/cjast/2019/v38i130344

Caste Wages

Abstract

Agrarian distress and rural unemployment have always been concerns in India. After the 1991 reforms, the government made inclusive growth the theme of development and undertook policy initiatives to boost rural employment. One such initiative, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, aims to provide landless labourers and marginal farmers work in the lean season and, thus, income. It seems to have succeeded, although it has not created new jobs in general.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/20/notes/rural-employment-scenario-nor...

Implementation Poverty

Abstract

The potential of India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for women’s empowerment is immense. Studies examining gender-related issues in MGNREGA have attested to the high levels of participation of women on worksites, and their positive experiences of working in MGNREGA. This article argues, however, that an exclusive focus on increased participation of women does not serve an agenda of promoting ‘women’s empowerment’. By ignoring the dynamics and processes of unpaid care work, both the making and the implementation of the Act fall short of the goal of women’s empowerment. The author argues that this invisibilizing of care arises from the gendered nature of the interactions of formal and informal institutions that have shaped MGNREGA. The article examines the gendered debates during the formulation of the Act and analyses the gendered nature of its implementation. It concludes that a true focus on women’s empowerment requires that women’s lived experiences are taken into account, especially those relating to their unpaid care responsibilities. MGNREGA’s potential for women’s empowerment can only be achieved through adequate implementation and monitoring of its gender provisions, which in turn depend on changing the formal and informal institutions that underpin policy processes.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12535?casa_token...

Gender Implementation

Abstract

This paper attempts to address the impact of the MGNREGA on the rural agricultural sector, focusing on cropping patterns, irrigated area, crop yields, wages and rural employment. The analysis is based on two data sources: the first is a unique district-season level panel dataset that we construct using multiple sources, and the second is unit record data from the NSS Employment Unemployment Surveys. To identify causal effects, we employ a difference-in-difference matching procedure, where districts are matched based on propensity scores; the use of propensity scores represents a novel aspect of this paper. We also examine pre-programme trends for each outcome variable to provide a check on the validity of our estimates. Our results indicate modest changes in cropping patterns that are state and period specific; however, they do not indicate any improvements in crop yields that were expected given the MGNREGA’s focus on investments in irrigation, although there is some evidence that irrigated area may have expanded after a lag. We also find that there is no systematic evidence of impact on wages and therefore no evidence that public works employment in MGNREGA crowded out casual labour in agriculture.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41027-019-0151-x

Environmental Sustainability Quantitative Wages

Abstract

Politics and the Right to Work: India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act by Rob Jenkins and James Manor presents a first-rate analysis of the politics of formation and implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA). The book draws on primary data collected through field surveys in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan from 2008 to 2010 and interviews which continued in the subsequent years. Quantitative data is obtained from various government sources and independent studies. A wide range of other secondary sources also inform the book. Jenkins and Manor present a total of six arguments. The first two arguments pertain to the evaluation of the MGNREGA’s performance. The next two link the analysis of the MGNREGA’s genesis and implementation with broader debates in Indian politics and political economy. The last two extend beyond India and apply more generally to development politics.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/10/book-reviews/political-project-mgnr...

Implementation Poverty

Abstract

Does information dissemination among beneficiaries of welfare programs mitigate implementation failures that undermine these programs? We present experimental evidence on this question in the context of the rural public works program in India. A noble intervention that involves accessing micro level online administrative information of the program and disseminating it to the beneficiaries was implemented in parts of the state of Telangana. Using baseline and endline survey as well as administrative data, we evaluate the impact of this intervention on awareness of the provisions, process, delayed payments and uptake of the program in terms of days worked. The design of the intervention ensured us to examine the effect of spillovers from the program as well as look at the impact of heterogeneous intensity of treatment. The findings indicate a positive and significant impact on raising awareness levels, improving the process mechanism and reducing last mile payment delays. However no significant impact was observed on delays that do not occur at the local level and on uptake as well. The impact of spillovers is also found to be largely positive, however no major difference in impact is found because of the heterogeneous treatment intensity.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3438649

Implementation

Abstract

Dramatic differences in the quality of human life are a prominent feature of today’s world. In response, many governments and international development agencies have begun to formulate and implement agendas for social protection. Nevertheless, the outcomes of such initiatives remain vastly varied. What explains such variations? In this article, I direct attention to the role of class politics in shaping the implementation of social protection by local governments that implement India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Based on a synthesis of official data, interviews with beneficiaries of social protections and elites, and direct observations in two Indian States, the author illustrates the ways in which variations in class politics influence the supply of employment works. This article departs from existing analysis of factors that favour the implementation of social protections, namely commitment of bureaucrats and politicians, political party linkages and clientelism, and civil society activism. It also nuances extant class-focused analysis which tend to adopt a polarized model of class conflict between dominant classes and the laboring poor. This article, by contrast, appreciates the conflicts within dominant classes, and emphasizes the role of coalitions and competitions between elite fractions. Where elite fractions successfully co-opt or eliminate one another, they successfully sabotage the labour-friendly MGNREGA. On the other hand, where elite fractions conflict with one another, labour-friendly programs such as the MGNREGA have a chance of being implemented. However, the transformative aspect of the program’s intent, in terms of dissolving the relations of power that bolster poverty, appears to be more in evidence in localities where precarious elites align with the laboring poor to challenge the influence of the entrenched elites. As we examine alternative means of addressing the dramatic differences in the quality of life that continue to blight the contemporary world, the imperative to analyze class politics becomes greater than ever before.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0973174119854606

Implementation Politics Poverty Qualitative

Abstract

Due to these issues, workers are increasingly losing faith in the scheme, making way for contractors and middlemen to occupy control of the programme.

https://thewire.in/government/mgnrega-wage-payment-delays

Wages

Abstract

The Government of India introduced Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. Now the program is implemented in all most all districts in India. MGNREGA is a largest public employment program in the country. This is one of the best successful program in India.The study followed purposive sample method. The study conducted 31 beneficiary households and 10 non-beneficiary (control) households and is based on availability of the households at the time of survey. The study conducted Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Personal Interviews (PI) were collected. The main objective of the paper is to investigate the factors which are influential to participate in the MGNREGA work. The main findings of the study are; Majority of the beneficiary head of the households were illiterates. Whoever the land holding was found very small their participation in MGNREGA works were taken up. The study reveals that the MGNREGA participation rate is high in semi-pucca and Thatched / Kachacha houses in sample households. It indicates that most of the participants were economically poor and socially deprived sections. We conclude that whoever involved fully in agriculture activities their participation rate was very less, villagers who lack work in village and are poor were the only willing to participate in MGNREGA.

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2227377504?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Jou...

Caste Implementation Poverty

Abstract

We examine the impact of conditional fiscal transfers on public employment across gender in India taking the case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The MGNREGS, as an “employer of last resort” fiscal policy, is a direct employment transfer, which guarantees to provide 100 days of paid work opportunities at a predetermined wage for public works in India through a self-selection criterion. Using unit record data of the latest 68th round of NSS Employment-Unemployment survey, we examined gender differential impacts of MGNREGS on labour force participation rates across States in India. The unit of analysis in our paper is not `household’, but is one step ahead to capture the intra-household level of participating behaviour in the economic activity. The results, based on the survey enumerating 2,80,763 individuals in rural areas, revealed that there is a striking heterogeneity in the gender impacts of job guarantee programme across States of India. The probit estimates showed that MGNREGS job card holder’s labour force participation rates were higher than the non-card holders and the result was more pronounced for women. The analysis of the time-use patterns and the unpaid care economy statistics of job guarantee card holders obtained from the unit records also shows that augmenting public investment in care economy infrastructure is significant for the job guarantee programme to function at its full potential in India.

https://www.nipfp.org.in/media/medialibrary/2018/03/WP_2018_2https://d...

Gender Quantitative Wages

Abstract

India is one of the several fast growing economies of the world. Despite this, poverty is still pervasive in the nation, especially in rural areas where almost 70% of India’s 1.3 billion people dwell. For combating this debauched scenario, a wide range of poverty alleviation policies have been introduced in the country since the liberation of the country from colonial regime. Among them, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme outruns all the existing arrangements and stands out as the largest poverty alleviation scheme operational in the country. There is no denying that the scheme is outstanding in its vision, but due to certain loopholes, it has been partially successful in achieving its goal of eradicating poverty. The present paper backed with empirical evidences from a rural and tribal setup of Jharkhand, attempts to assess the institutional and non-institutional impediments which are encumbering the desired accomplishment of the scheme at the grass-root level. It also endeavors to forward a few recommendations for policy makers for enhancing and improving the implementation of the said scheme.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3275688

Implementation Poverty Qualitative