Monday, January 24, 2011

IMPACT OF MGNREGA ON THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE RURAL PO

(copy of the research proposal submitted to GRI-Gandhigram for doing Phd.)
INTRODUCTION

In India, our rural masses lack the basic infrastructure facilities to sustain there life, rural India constitutes about 72 percent of the total population. Their small land holdings provide them with minimal yield to support their existence. The opportunities to be better standard of living in rural areas of our country are minimal.
The strategy of rural development viz. improving the economic conditions of the individual rural poor and investments to develop overall economy of an area are being given increasing importance in our planning process. The objective are to solve the problems of unemployment, under employment and poverty which are the major factors hunting the Socio-economic development of the country in ordered to achieve the goals of growth with Social Justice. Several schemes have been taken up in the matter of rural development with a view to ensure Social Justice. But these programmes have neither reduced the poverty levels in a sustainable manner nor have they expanded the labour absorption capacity of the main stream economy in any significant scale.

Attempts to reduce the income poverty in India since the 1970's followed two distinct approaches. While one approach considered privately owned asset based strategy aiming to increase incidence of self employment through schemes like IRDP, ITDP, TRYSEM, the other approach concentrated on wage-based strategy through providing employment to rural poor for creation of protective assets owned publicly. Schemes like NREP, RLEGP, JRY, EAS, fell under the second category. Both the asset based and employment based interventions were characterized by a large-scale leakge of resources in to the hands of individuals who managed a space for themselves between the source of funds and the intended recipients. To arrest the leakages and to improve the income level of the rural masses the parliament enacted an act No:42 of 2005, called the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) which received the accent of the president on 5th September 2005. The Act came into force on February 2006 in 200 districts of backward areas of India and extended to another 100 districts in 2007 and it has further extended to all the districts of India in 2008. The prime goal of the scheme is providing 100 days of wage employment to those claim employment in the appropriate authority, in the absence of providing employment the act instructs the authority to provide unemployment allowances.
TITLE OF THE STUDY.

Impact of NREGA on The Standard of living of Rural Poor.


STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Improvement in standard of living in rural poor in developing countries like India is a global challenge. At the end of the Ninth five year plan (1997-2002) 26.1% of country's total population was living below poverty line. In rural area it was 27.1 percent to the total population. The overall employment rate is estimated to 7.32 percent. The rate of growth of women unemployment in the rural area is 9.8%. This is because of low growth rate of new and productive employment (Das 2003). The world bank's (2005) estimates shows that 80% of India's population lives below the international poverty line of $2 a day. India ranks 80th in this list of 94 countries. According to Suresh dendulker committee report that 37.2%(40.71crore)lives below poverty line in India. Based on June2010 data, there were 859 lakh families lives below poverty line in India.
The labour force will increase by 520 laksh during the 11th plan period based on the growth of working age population. If the current trend of more women seeking jobs continues, mostly in rural areas, the labour force will be around 650 lakhs. This increase will be in addition to the current 350 lakhs unemployed. So, India has to provide employment to around 1000 lakhs people most of them in rural areas. According to the planning commission assessment India cannot provide full employment but may approach to generate 650 lakhs employment, to bring the unemployment rate.
Therefore in this perspective, it was felt that, ad hoc schemes like JRY, SGRY etc., would not achieve our objectives. And it become essential to redesign the strategy to address the shortcomings and also to derive programmes from the premise of law. The parliament enacted the NREGA law in 2005. Undoubtedly this is the largest ever public employment programme visualized in human history. This act has brought about a paradigm shift both in design and the approach of intervention mechanisms of wage employment programmes. The essence of the Act is "to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work".Aganist this backdrop, this study attempts to examine the performance of the NREGA programme in the District of Tamilnadu in generating sustainable assets and employment opportunities and their by improving the standard of living of rural poor.
Issues to be Analysised:
i. Whether NREGA generated 100 days of employment as per the act ?.
ii. How for it has improved the income of the family?.

iii. Is there any shift in the expenditure pattern of family?.

iv. Has it made any impact on empowerment of women, and their status?

v. Has it created constructive social assets? .

vi. This will be analysised during the course of study.


REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE :

A number of literature based on empirical studies are available on the role of NREGA in achieving livelihood security and promoting sustainable development.These studies depicts that NREGA programme has shown mixed results so far in whole rural India.Mathur(2007) argues in favour of NREGA that it has marked the beginning of momentous changes in the lives of the rural poor.He shows that migration has reduced in several villages in Andhra Pradesh,Chattisgarh,Orissa and Rajasthan,wes lessthan minimum wage were raised in many states,the participation of women increased significantly even in the districts of Rajesthan and Uthara Pradesh.
Ambasta et al (2008) made an attempt to focus on the quality of assets under NREGA works. They point out that the quality of the assets was poor. Farm bunding has been initiated without any proper technical planning because which the quality of work was shoddy.In Tikamgarh,plants have already died because no arrangement was made for water.So,the poor quality of assets makes a hinderance in achiving sustainable development.
On the otherhand,Chakaraborty(2007) observes that employment guarantee is abysmally low in Maharastra,Karnataka,Bihar,and Jharkhand.It is noted that while for Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat the supply of employment has meet the demand,for most other states enrolment falls for short of demand.
Prasanta Basuri(2010)reveals that the villagers never got 100 days of employment, got around 30 days of work, however not continuously , the wages also paid after along time. So rural livelihood security of the Burulia district West Bengal still in problem after the implementation of NREGA. He also finds that the labour cost and material cost(60:40) ratio makes hindrance towards real asset creation.
Ratna M.Sudarshan(2010)observed from field work was that many women have been persuaded to come out of house for work for the first time in response to this programme in both Rajasthan and Kerela.In Malapuzha,Kerela the scheme has encouraged non-working women, widows and elderly to participate. The potential of the programme for allowing women to make some savings was observed everwhere.
The experience of the NREGA in Tamilnadu and in India is of more than three years. Therefore, it is time to analysis the performance of the scheme and highlights its strength and weaknesses and judge whether this strategy holds relevance in future plan. An attempt will be made to do this during the course of study.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY :

1) To study the Socio-Economic characteristics of the Respondents in the study area.

2) To understand the nature of work, and work environment and the problems in
Implementation.

3) To analysis their living conditions before and after their enrollment under NRGEA.

4) To asses the creation of social assets the role of PRI in selection implementation and
evaluation of the scheme.

5) To suggest suitable measures to improve the standard of living of rural poor in the
study area.


HYPOTHESIS
The following hypothesis has formulated for the present study;

1) NREGA has improved the standard of living of the rural poor.

2) NREGA has created social assets.


SIGNIFICANCE AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

This was the first time a country had passed a law of this nature and scale, generating livelihood security to rural households exclusively Unorganized laborers of India. This is the unique scheme covers the world largest population those who are living with very low income and without any constructive opportunities for their upliftment. The proposed study will analysis the impact of the scheme in the creation of Employment, and assets, provision of wages, and thereby providing the suggestion for the improvement of the scheme and implementation. This study will also helps to facilitate the development of Rural masses and their Economic growth in the Madurai District.

DEFINITIONS OF CONCEPTS:

NRGEA : National Rural Employment Guarantee (NRGEA) was notified on September 7, 2005. The objective of the Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Through the process of providing Employment on works that address causes of chronic poverty such as drought, deforestation and soil erosion, the Act seeks to strengthen the natural resource base of rural livelihood and create durable assets in rural areas. Effectively implemented, NRGEA has the potential to transform the geography of poverty.

Standard Of Living
The level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area. The standard of living includes factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordability of housing, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, number of vacation days per year, affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare, quality and availability of education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, national economic growth, economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety. The standard of living is closely related to quality of life. Standard of living includes not only the material articles of consumption but also the number of dependents in a family, the environment, the educational opportunities and the amount spent for health, recreation, and social services in developing countries.



SELECTION OF THE STUDY AREA.
The NRGEA is implemented all over India from 2005. The state of Tamil Nadu stands first in implementation of the NRGEA scheme. The three tier panchayat raj institutions in Tamil Nadu is performing well in the implementation of various Rural Development projects. The Madurai district is one of the leading district in the implementation of the scheme. After carefully considering all aspects of the Rural development schemes and the implementation of the act, the researcher has identified the Madurai District -Tamilnadu as area for this study.
COLLECTION OF DATA :
Primary data
The primary data will be collected in the selected families by adopting a simple Random sampling method.
Secondary data
The secondary data will be collected from the Ministry of Rural Development( www.nrega.nic.in) and Department of Economics and Statistics other allied Deparments , the researcher will identity the policies, programmes designed for the implementation of Act, by which the improvement of the scheme and the rural masses will be identified. The data will also be collected by personnel meetings, observations, discussion with implementing Agencies like Project officer DRDA, BDO's of panchayat union, people representatives of Panchayat Raj Institutions.
TOOLS :
Well designed and pre-tested Interview schedule will be used as a tool for collection of information. Statistical tolls Average, mean Average, percentage, chi – squire, correlation will be used to construct the tables and for analysising the data.

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