Ensuring Rural Livelihood Security through MGNREGA: A Study in District Mewat, Haryana

The present development mandate in India is to ensure livelihood security as a legitimate policy commitment. This perspective is well rooted and reflected in the design of MGNREGA. The foregoing paper based on a field study conducted in Mewat, a backward district of Haryana, analyses the livelihoods context in selected villages and determines the effectiveness of this Act within wider livelihood strategies of rural poor. A concurrent mixed method research design has been used and perspectives from different stakeholders have been taken into account. The livelihoods analysis has yielded information on a plethora of constraints in terms of inadequacy of physical infrastructure, amenities, human and natural capital in the study area. The potential of this Act though found incipient, but the findings are also suggestive of the change it can bring to the rural edifice of this district, provided livelihoods oriented interventions are carried out in a participatory and sustainable manner.