Implementation of MGNREGA and Livelihood Security of Rural Households in Maharashtra: A Region-wise Analysis

The paper has evaluated the implementation of MGNREGA in the state of Maharashtra in terms of coverage of households, employment guaranteed, works undertaken, strengths, bottlenecks and strategies for further strengthening the programme. The scheme has been reported successful in terms of asset creation, watershed development, prevention of draughts, large-scale administration of rural public works, reduction in large-scale migration and coverage of weaker sections of the society. However, the major problem relates to the employment generation as the person-days generated and the number households provided 100 days of employment are quite low in almost all the districts of Maharashtra. In Maharashtra, only 34 per cent households registered under MGNREGA have received job cards, which is quite a low proportion. The wages offered under MGNREGA are low vis-à-vis market wage rates in several districts of the state. 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, MGNREGA has 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.