Socio economic impact of NREGS on livelihood of rural people (A case study of Chamoli and Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand)

This paper looks at the impact of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Uttarakhand that was launched in the year 2005 as a social security measure aimed at providing 100 day employment security to the poor in villages. The NREGA was also meant to use this labour to construct rural infrastructure. In this paper the researcher has made an effort to find out the socio economics impact of NREGA on income, employment, poverty reduction and migration in the state of Uttarakhand. The study has revealed that MGNREGA has provided ample opportunities of employment to the women and weaker sections of the society, has increased their income levels and has reduced poverty level in chamoli district as well as in Uttarakhand state

For this research, a detailed survey of 360 households in a specific village of two districts was undertaken to highlight the impact of the NREGS. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach, questionnaire interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) were chosen as research method and was completed by worker interviews