Comparative Performance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of Rural Women Labour Participants in Punjab and Karnataka: Analysis and their Problems and Suggestions

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme envisages livelihood and social security by providing at least 100 to 150 days of guaranteed wage employment to every rural Households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The present study helps us to compare both in terms of participation and efficiency. Multistage random sampling was used in household-level data on Two Indian states encompassing over 6 districts and 300 sampled rural women labourers as respondents during 2016–17. The study evidenced that in both, the states majority of assets created was related to road development, land development, and rural sanitation. In Punjab, Due to lack of funds and insufficient balances in respective villages with their allotted funds some of the works was not completed and it was observed that a project approved by gram panchayat was ongoing works that will take time to complete but in Karnataka, the scheme was performing better with efficient utilization of funds and resources. Major problems faced by rural women labourers in Punjab are due to illiteracy, they feel difficulty in filling form for further registration process, untimely measurement of work, lack of adequate, and irregularity in work, harassment during work, and in Karnataka, the major problems faced by rural women labourers was mostly related to low technical unskilled work, no resting place, lack of child care facility at MGNREGS working site and corruption practices from the part of officers/officials was highly observed. Suggestions given by the majority of rural women labour participant in scheme in the context of further improvement are as follows regular work should be given, minimum 100 days employment should be given, wage rate should be increased, awareness among the rural women should be increased, skill work should be provided, procedure should be simplified, social prohibition should be reduced etc. These findings are therefore a pointer to the fact that a public work programme such as MGNREGS plays an important role in influencing and improving standard of life of rural women laborers who are desirable and they plays important role for sustainable rural development.