Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: A Road Map for Rural Development in Karnataka-An Analysis

India has one of the most developing countries in the world. It has touched 17.64 decadal growth rate of population as per the census 2011. Since independence the Government of India initiated several sort of rural development programmes for to eradicate poverty by providing livelihood through employment opportunities. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is one such kind of poverty alleviation and rural development Scheme is a rights-based wage employment programme aiming at enhancing livelihood security by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act provides a social safety net for the vulnerable households and an opportunity to combine growth with equity. Central Government in co-ordination coalition with State Governments MGNREGA is being implemented on February 2, 2006. This Scheme has been in operation in all the districts of Karnataka State since 2006–07 this is being implemented in a phased manner.

The main objectives of the study is to analyze the trends in wage rate and provided work under the different categories of population in Karnataka during the period from 2006–07 to 2016–17 and to analyze the financial progress and physical progress during the period from 2006–07 to 2014–15 and to know the progress achieved Under MGNREGS during the period from 2006–07 to 2015–16. The study is based on secondary sources of data, gathered from various books, articles, census reports, annual reports, Government documents, journals, official records of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Government of Karnataka and Government of India and Economic Survey of Karnataka, websites.