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Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Design Failure, Implementation Failure or Both?

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  • Girish Kumar Agrawal

Abstract

The Government of India implemented MGNREGA in 2005–06 to provide social security cum wage employment on demand, initially in 200 districts and was later extended to all of India. The programme expenditure has now ballooned to over 60,000 crore per year in 2018–19, for creating about 267.95 crore man-days of employment. The programme has been beset with a host of issues since its inception, raising serious doubts about its impact in achieving designed objectives. The programme was designed with host of objectives starting from social security to providing livelihood security to wage employment on demand to arresting migration to deep rooting democracy. All prior research looked at specific objectives in a particular geographic area. This article examines the programme achievement data and examines the same against programme objectives and argues that the programme may be flawed in design objectives and inadequate programme architecture. Contrasting the programme data with census raises further issues about reliability.

Suggested Citation

  • Girish Kumar Agrawal, 2019. "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Design Failure, Implementation Failure or Both?," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 44(4), pages 349-368, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:manlab:v:44:y:2019:i:4:p:349-368
    DOI: 10.1177/0258042X19871406
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mihir Shah, 2016. "Should India do away with the MGNREGA?," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 59(1), pages 125-153, March.
    2. 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.
    3. Khera, Reetika (ed.), 2011. "The Battle for Employment Guarantee," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198070627.
    4. Raabe, Katharina & Birner, Regina & Sekher, Madhushree & Gayathridevi, K.G. & Shilpi, Amrita & Schiffer, Eva, 2010. "How to overcome the governance challenges of implementing NREGA," IFPRI discussion papers 963, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
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    Cited by:

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    2. Narayan Chandra Nayak & Bimal Kishore Sahoo & Mamata Jenamani & Alok Ranjan Mohanty & Runa Sen Chatterjee, 2021. "Does Convergence of Rural Development Schemes Improve Household Welfare? An Investigation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Odisha, India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 64(4), pages 1023-1042, December.

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