Public Spending and Rural Livelihood in India: A Study of MGNREGA

Even though the Indian economy has witnessed spectacular success in terms of achieving a higher growth rate and became one of the 12 largest and 10 fastest growing economies in the world at present, the rural community is still grossly neglected. In this context, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) was brought into force by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in February 2006. The primary aim of NREGA was to enhance the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to a rural household who volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The present study explored that though there were some issues of non-payment of wage on time, poor facilities at the work site, and so on, the programme has proved that the states having better funding or higher per capita of fund performed well.