Impact of MGNREGA on Reducing Rural Poverty and Improving Socio-economic Status of Rural Poor: A Study in Burdwan District of West Bengal

The present study conducted in the Burdwan district of West Bengal, has examined the socio-economic impact of MGNREGA on the rural poor who are mainly comprised of small and marginal farmers & agricultural labourers. The study is based on a random sample of 102 respondents (82 beneficiary and 20 non-beneficiary households) drawn by the PPS method from two good-performing and two poorly-performing Gram Panchayats randomly selected from one randomly selected good-performing block in the district. It has been found that significant changes have taken place in the socio-economic variables like annual per capita income, monthly per capita food expenditure, annual per child expenditure on education, per capita savings, condition of the dwelling houses, access to healthcare facility and possession of other assets or luxury items for those households which are regularly working in the scheme. According to the value of the socio-economic index prepared, it has been found that in the initial year of implementation (2007-08) of MGNREGA in the study area, 43.9 per cent beneficiary households were in poor socio-economic conditions which have gradually improved in the succeeding years and decreased to 32.9 per cent in 2008-09 and further to 18.3 per cent in 2009-10. The study has made some suggestions also for incorporating improvements in the present MGNREG scheme based on the constraints reported by the workers associated with this Scheme.