International Journal of Social Sciences
Year : 2012, Volume : 1, Issue : 2
First page : ( 135) Last page : ( 154)
Print ISSN : 2249-6637. Online ISSN : 2321-5771.

Agrarian Distress and NREGA in Vidarbha, Maharashtra

Rajaretnam T.

Program Management Specialist, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. Email: rajaretnam@tiss.edu

Online published on 16 October, 2013.

Abstract

The NREGA aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing them hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year. Vidarbha being a distressed region NREGA scheme should have been a boon, but the performance of the scheme in this region was very poor. Though half of the households have applied for job card and of them three-fourths have received it, hardly 5 percent have received work under the scheme during 2008–09. The official statistics also showed a similar picture. There were no marked differences in the indices between castes, religions, cultivated holdings and income levels except large farmers. FGDs with landless labourers, SC/ST members and marginal and small farmers showed that people are keen on NREGA work but skeptical that it was rarely undertaken, hard to do, quick payment not ensured and people had to follow lengthy procedures. As such the NREGA scheme seems to have not benefited the rural households in the Vidarbha region.

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Keywords

NREGA, Distress difference, Skeftical Vidarbha.

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