MEDIATING EFFECTS ON POVERTY REDUCTION IN INDIA THROUGH MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE PROGRAMME

Abstract

The employment opportunities in rural areas have significantly decreased for the last few decades in India. Therefore, Government of India introduced Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) to create employment opportunities for rural people. The Programme is considered as a “silver bullet” for eradicating rural poverty and unemployment in India. The purpose of this empirical research study is to develop a new model for poverty reduction in rural India through this Programme. The novelty of this article is an attempt to develop an empirical research model that assists the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme when mapping the level of economics service quality and thereby enhance the same. This Programme provides an alternative source of livelihood, which will have an impact on reducing migration, restricting child labor, alleviating poverty, and making villages self-sustaining through productive assets creation such as road construction, cleaning up of water tanks, soil and water conservation work, etc. for which it has been considered as the largest anti-poverty programme in the world. The paper critically examines the implementation process of this Programme and its impact on tribal livelihoods. The following research methodology is used in the article: the data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The sampling procedure used for this study is stratified random sampling. The stratification is done based on the Taluks are Kumbakonam (Thanjavur District), Keeranur (Pudukottai District) and Nagappatinam (Nagappatinam District) of Tamilnadu state of South-India for the nature of region South, East, Centre, West and North while selecting the MGNREGP Employees from each category, non-probabilistic convenience and judgmental sampling technique is used. The findings and conclusions of the study reveal that millions of rural poor with the inclusion of new works under this Programme could able to get some employment which supports their livelihoods. Efforts are exerted to improve more transparency and accountability in implementing this programme to ensure that the benefits reach out to the poor and the needy villagers. The regression analysis revealed that the Poverty Eradication on the various dimensions of Economic Development, influenced Economic Development followed by Social Development. The visual representation of results suggest that the relationships between the dimensions of Economic Development, Social development resulted in a significant impact on the mediated factor ‘Poverty Eradication’. The paper suggests the policy framework for the stakeholders in effective implementation of the Programme.

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