View of AN IMPROVEMENT OF WAGES IN THE RURAL AREA THROUGH THE MGNREGA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO M.P.

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Vol. 06, Special Issue 01, (IC-RCOVID19) April 2021 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 287 AN IMPROVEMENT OF WAGES IN THE RURAL AREA THROUGH THE MGNREGA WITH

SPECIAL REFERENCE TO M.P.

Prof. (Dr.) Pramod Sharma Registrar, Renaissance University, Indore

Abstract:- The popular job scheme of MGNREGA defines double goals of non-urban growth and food security. The MGNREGA scheme states that performs must be focused towards a set of particular non-urban growth actions such as: water preservation and growing, A forestation, non-urban connection, overflow control and security such as growth and fix of embankments, etc. so by improving these necessary field , the government of Indian want to make country a developed one. This job scheme is highly liked by the people of the country.

Poverty reduction and rural development are the most difficult and biggest challenges in the country. Since independence a number of poverty alleviation and rural development programmes have been implemented during the plan period aiming to reduce poverty.

These development programmes can be grouped in two categories (i) wage employment schemes (ii) Scheme self-employment schemes. This paper discussed about the people’s protest about poverty through introduction of a right based approach for poverty alleviation in the form of provision of rural employment guarantee in theonstitutional system of India and how MGNREGA has inaugurated as a remarkable process for the empowerment of the poor.

Keywords: Economic Growth, MGNREGA, Irrigation, Rural Poverty, Wages, Employment etc.

1. INTRODUCTION

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act became operational in 2005 and a large scale programme initially covered 200 districts in India under National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme. The programme in the third phase covered all the districts of thecountry and since October 2009 is called Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Such a large scale programme guaranteeing 100 days of employment to any poor family has spent around Rs 95672.88 crore over the last 4-5 years.

The programme has improved rural infrastructures particularly for enhancing water availability for enhancing agricultural productivity. Madhya Pradesh is one of the frontrunner states on effective performance of MGNREGS. In fiscal year 2009-10 state has generated 2624 lakh person days under MNREGA. There are 46.17 lakh assets created under the MGNREGS in M.P. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act guarantees employment for more than 54 million rural poor of India for 100 days in a year. The provisions of the Act identifies Panchayati Raj institutions as the key implementing agency for the programmed providing a significant opportunity for demonstrating the role of village level institutions in transforming their village infrastructure and addressing abject poverty.

The scheme is poised to contribute significantly in growth the overall rural economy in the state as well as the country. The processes are of the scheme have new ways of doing business which include principles of transparency and grass root democracy. It is the largest development programmed in the state since its enactment (initiated in 18 districts of state in Feb 2006 and from April 2008all 48 districts are being covered).

After getting independence, the Central Government has implemented various Government Planning for Socio-Economic of India such as SGSY, IAS IRDP and so on.

MGNREGA is also one among them planning for the poverty alleviation of India. Here, in India which follows a typical caste system there are Scheduled Castes (SCs) compromises about 16.6 percent and Scheduled Tribes (STs) compromises about 8.6 percent of India’s total population. On the other hand, violence against women is quite common in whole world and very intensein India due to patriarchal nature of our society and so other many reasons such as dowry, domestic violence, rapeetc. Although 33.33% place is reserved for women under MGNREGA Act.

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

While emphasizing the need for employment generation programmes in the realm of poverty alleviation, Verma (2006) broughtouta publication on “Rural Poverty Alleviation and

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Vol. 06, Special Issue 01, (IC-RCOVID19) April 2021 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 288 Employment.” He pointed out that unemployment is still on the increase and that the benefit of growth has failed to percolate down to the poor people especially in rural areas.

He further stressed that for poverty alleviation rapid economic growth focusing mainly employment intensive sector is required. In addition to this access to basic minimum services and direct state intervention in the form of targeted anti-poverty programmes, including provision of subsidized food-grains too is important. Dreze (2007) stated that corruption in rural employment programs in Orissa even continues in NREGS as well.

He further added that there is tremendous potential of NREGA in the survey areas. He was of the opinion that NREGA offers opportunity for the rural poor’s, and that it is appreciated by casual laborers and other disadvantaged sections of the population also. This was held by them to bean unprecedented achievement in the history of social security in India.

Disadvantaged sections of the population, they further added, are the main gainers of the programme benefits. They also found that the share of women in NREGA employment to be about two thirds in Rajasthan, and that of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households to be as high as 80 percent. In this way this Act contributes to social equality and economic redistribution.

These figures, they stated, are based on official data released by the Ministry of Rural Development, but they are fully consistent with independent reports, as well as their own experience from Jabalpur district in April 2006. Centre for science and environment (CSE) in his report (2008) on NREGA stated that there has been a lot of success stories of economic & environmental regeneration where employment has been generated through out the year by the efforts of community or NGO. As these success stories were not part of the earlier Government employment guarantee schemes, the report suggested that the immediate focus should be given to study that how these success stories should be made part of the employment guarantee schemes besides to identify its lacunae & the drawbacks

& as well as their redressed. IIM-(Bangalore) in the year 2008 conducted a study in Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka covering four districts so as to make an appraisal of the various processes & procedures of MGNREGA programme. Report emphasized the need of capacity building, more awareness generation & also the strengthening of demand process of the programme. In conclusion, results indicated that the MGNREGA programme has been implemented better in the districts of Madhya Pradesh compared to the districts of Karnataka.

Planning Commission (2008) conducted a survey in 20 states to study the impact of MGNREGA. The results showed a shift of low income groups (about 50%) towards high income category, significant increase in the expenditure on food and non-food items (6%) &

change in the expenditure pattern, procurement of livestock (68%) & household articles (42%). Initiation of savings for the first time (2%), clearing of outstanding loans (1/5th of sample households) were some of the positive impacts of MGNREGA on rural households.

The other things they observed were the non-provision of employment within stipulated timeframe (80%) and non-payment of unemployment allowances, the utilization of small portion of households for more than 35 days of work and existence of distress migration in sample villages.

2.1 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme as a Social Protection

The present study is initiated within the framework of social protection to the informal workers. If we broadly divide provision of right to work in terms of “job security” and

“employment security”, the right to work falls in the category of “employment security”.

While job security refers to ensuring regular work and guaranteeing against arbitrary dismissal, employment security refers to provision of certain minimum days of work at an assured minimum wage so as to enable the underemployed or unemployed workers earn a certain minimum supplementary income to overcome deprivation and distress migration.

Thus, MGNREGA fits as one of the important measures of social protection. Though the NREGA Act and its operational guide lines are uniform for the whole country, irrespective of its regional diversities, it is hypothesized that for effective functioning, different states will need to find their own feet in ensuring effective implementation. While implementation mandates adhering to the broad framework within which the programme has been circumscribed at the national level through its detailing in the Act, state governments have

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Vol. 06, Special Issue 01, (IC-RCOVID19) April 2021 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 289 been given sufficient flexibility to incorporate design innovations. The works to be undertaken under MGNREGA as mentioned earlier, include broadly nine types with a primary thrust on improvement of rural and water resources, and rural connectivity. An important aspect of the works to be undertaken that has direct link as a social protectionmeasurerelatestotheprovisionthatresourcedevelopmentcouldincludenotonlypublic works but also land development and irrigation facilities on the lands of poor Surveyed Castes and Surveyed Tribes, land of below poverty line(BPL)households, land assigned under land reforms, lands of households benefiting from the housing scheme – Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and also of small and marginal farmers as provided for recently. MGNREGA works of the kind observed shows the potential for increasing the productivity of small land holdings, there by increasing the income base of these poor households. But in Bihar hardly any such works on the lands of the poor was noticed, reflecting the political and administrative conditions that may not easily facilitate interventions in favor of the poor.

3. SCENARIO OF POVERTY, RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Poverty is simply a feeling of powerlessness and resource lessens which is possessed by all the people who are poor. In general, Poverty is a situation of feeling unsatisfied towards the fundamental needs of daily life as food, clothes, shelter etc. According to Planning Commission of India, “Poverty line is drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If a person is unable to get that much minimum level of calories, then he/she is considered as being below poverty line. Poverty eradication is the major objective of planned development. For this economic growth is important which create more resources and more space for the involvement of the poor. After independence Government of India began to fight against poverty based on Russian model where a series of five year development plans were initiated, successive governments started some schemes such as “Garibi Hatao” etc. Currently 12^th plan is being followed. India is the rural based country which is highly dependent on agricultural sector where majority of population live in rural areas. For the growth of Indian economy rural development in India is essential. Rural development in India focuses on providing better livelihood opportunities, poverty all eviation, provision of basic amenities and infrastructure facilities through innovative programmes of wage and self-employment. Rural development enhances Indian economy which ultimately reduces poverty. The aim of rural development is improving rural people livelihood through better access to assets. For fulfilling its aim it follows some basic objectives such as rural development programmes for all eviation of poverty, unemployment, rural people training etc.

3.1 Improvement of Wages and Livelihood Security

MGNREGA aims to provide a steady source of income and livelihood security for the poor, vulnerable and marginalized. This chapter reviews the existing literature on the impact of MGNREGA on poverty and inclusive growth to assess the extent to which the Scheme has succeeded in meeting its objectives. Overall, evidence suggests that MGNREGA does provide basic income assurance to a large number of beneficiaries. In FY 2011–121 alone, nearly 5 crore households 2 (close to 25 percent of all rural households in the country)were provided over 209 crore person-days 3 of work. Many micro-level studies have assessed the impact of MGNREGA in terms of poverty all eviation and generation of income opportunities in the future. However, further research and analysis is required, both for evaluating the current efforts in terms of their impact on livelihood and poverty as well as informing future implementation of the Scheme. The key inferences and findings from the research studies are listed below.

From FY 2006 upto FY 2011–12*, over 1,10,700 crore (66 percent of the total expenditure of around Rs 1, 66,000 crore) under MGNREGA has been spent on worker wages. In FY 2011–12* alone, Rs 24,600 crore of the total expenditure under MGNREGA was on worker wages. To assess the impact of the Scheme on poverty and deprivation, studies have used proxy indicators, including household income and monthly per capita expenditure 4 (MPCE). Estimations of the net benefits from the Scheme also take into account, availability of alternate employment opportunities (AEO) 5 and opportunity cost 6 of time as important parameters. Household Income There are a number of distinct ways in which MGNREGA is likely to impact poverty, the most direct and obvious way being by

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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING

Vol. 06, Special Issue 01, (IC-RCOVID19) April 2021 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 290 providing extra work opportunities and income to the poorest in the rural areas.7 Net household income or income as a fraction of household income, is considered as an indicator of the relevance of the Scheme for the poor. Surveying 1,500 households in three states, a study8 observed that the share of MGNREGA in the income of the poor was the highest in Andhra Pradesh (about 17 percent).

4. CONCLUSION

India is a country of more than one billion people, where more than 70 percent populations are living in rural areas. Mostly they were dependent on seasonal agricultural labours and were bound to migrate to urban cities for the work before the implementation of MGNREGA.

Poverty was widespread across the country at varying level in different states. Rural areas were most affected with the problem of poverty and non-availability of opportunities to work in hometowns. They were always in hardship and were forced to suicide. In this backdrop, the MGNREGA proved to be miracle for the poor in the rural areas. The MGNREGA provides at least 100 days guaranteed wage employment for all demands for work. Women are given guaranteed one-third share in the total employment. Marginalized groups, for example SCs, STs & others, are allowed to get developed own private lands. All these provisions in the act make MGNREGA more inclusive. In the villages, the infrastructures are created which is of prime importance for the development of the rural as well as the urban areas. Certainly the income generated in rural areas will flow tourbanareas and the infrastructural development facilitates the people to move to the urban areas frequently. MGNREGA also raises the standard of living of the rural people. However, the government needs to amend the MGNREGA to provide more employment for unskilled manual work regularly. The skilled workers necessitate special employment opportunities so that they may do efficiently. They are not satisfied with the unskilled works available, because they find themselves sometimes unable to do the hard work. To live with dignity, there fore, it is necessary that they are getting income regularly, not for few days. The people in rural areas welcomed the MGNREGA, but considered it as “half a loaf is better than none”. Thus, the government must re-think over the MGNREGA and provide guaranteed employment for more than 100 days and the urban peoples too must not be over looked.

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