Employment Guarantee Programme and Dynamics of Rural Transformation in India: Challenges and Opportunities

This book offers an assessment of the performance, impact, and welfare implications of the world’s largest employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Launched by the Indian government, the programme covers entire rural area of the country. The book presents various micro-level analyses of the programme and its heterogeneous impacts at different scales, almost a decade after its implementation. While there are some doubts over the future of the scheme as well as its magnitude, nature and content, the central government appears committed to it, as a ’convergence scheme’ of various other welfare and rural development programmes being implemented at both national and state level. The book discusses the outcomes of the programme and offers critical insights into the lessons learnt, not only in the context of India, but also for similar schemes in countries in South and South-East Asia as well as in Africa, and Latin America. Adopting inter-disciplinary perspectives in analysing these issues, this unique book uses a judicious mix of methods---integrating quantitative and qualitative tools---and will be an invaluable resource for analysts, NGOs, policymakers and academics alike.

Madhusudan Bhattarai is a former principal scientist (economist) for the Markets, Institutions and Policies Research Program at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a CGIAR center, where he coordinated the semi-arid tropic (SAT) India component of the ICRISAT village studies project. He has a PhD in Applied Economics from Clemson University, SC, USA, with specialization in natural resources economics and public policy analysis. After his PhD, he worked for over 15 years at three CGIAR centers and other international development agencies in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan, and other countries in Asia. His expertise relates to public policy analysis, the economics of agricultural and rural development programs, natural resources management, rural labor markets, institutional economics, transactional cost analysis, governance analysis, village studies, and social protection programs.
P.K. Viswanathan is a professor (economics) at the Amrita School of Business, Amrita University, Kochi, India. He has a PhD in Economics from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India. His research and teaching interests relate to the economics of natural resources management; agrarian transformation and rural livelihoods; aspects of technology, institutions, policies and governance; climate change impacts on natural resources, environment and agriculture; conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems; sustainable energy policy; globalization and its impacts on agriculture and trade; and welfare impacts of trade certifications in India’s plantation sector. Rudra N. Mishra is an assistant professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR), Ahmedabad, India since 2007. He obtained his PhD from the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, India. His research and teaching interests relate to poverty analysis, economic analysis of health and nutrition, rural livelihoods, gender analysis, rural labor markets and time allocation, and issues related to tribes. He also teaches topics related to statistics and econometrics, sample surveys and research methodology at GIDR and other academic institutions. Cynthia Bantilan is a former research program director for the Markets, Institutions Policy Research Program at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Hyderabad, India. She has been involved in agricultural and rural development strategy and policy research in India for over 25 years. She also directed the Impact Assessment Program at ICRISAT for the semi-arid tropics globally. She spearheaded innovations implementing key research programs on agricultural markets, institutions and policy using macro and micro/village level studies for sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She specializes in agricultural research evaluation and impact assessment, strategic analysis, econometrics and agricultural statistics, monitoring and evaluation, analysis of livelihood strategies and development pathways, poverty and income distribution, and applications for decision support and science policy. She has guided the research work of over 100 graduate students. Before joining ICRISAT, she was an associate professor of economics and statistics at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. Then, she also served the Philippine government in various capacities: national policy adviser for poverty and income distribution at the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), national adviser on Agricultural Statistics for the Dept. of Agriculture; and principal adviser at the National Statistics Office for 5 years.