Gender Impact of MGNREGA: Evidence from 10 Selected Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT) Villages in India

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarrentee Act (MGNREGA) aims to provide 100 days of work to a household in rural area who is willing to do manual work and deamdns for such work from the local government. The programme involves flexible working hour and payment on ‘piece rate’ basis which will further help women to particpate, after attending their routine household chores. Not suprisingly, the extent of participation of women in MGNREGA rose to 50% during 2011, with many states showing an overwhelming response of more than 90% for women. The present study is based on the filed work of 10 villages in semi-arid areas from Gujarat, Mahrashtra and Madhya Pradesh states of India, which involves in total of 484 women from 326 households, who had particpated in MGNREGA work at least once between 2006-13, spread across the three states. The results shows the women acknowledges positive impact of the programme on themselves and their households in various aspects. Many also opened their bank account first time after involving in the MGNREGA work. Women reported that the aditional income has helped them and their household to increase food consumption, improvement in social standing for their household, as well as their own status in the household. It helped them to support education of their children and meet health care needs of their own and their households. The benefits from the assets created under the programme were also helpful in improving ground water level and increasing the greeney in the villages they live, which also positively impacted both women and men and also to non-partiipatory households, as well. However concerns were raised over declinging oppartunity for work under the programme in many of the villages surveyed, lack of measures to ensure particpation of women in gramsabhas to decide about the projects to be undertaken, low wage rate than the statutory fixed minnimim wage rate, and increasing additonal burden of work on women as they have to take care of their household chrous, as well. Many women are hardly aware about their share in the amount received by the household from the programme and many of them do not own the money. Still, many of the women respondents who we interviewed want the programme to be strenthened and expanded. They want the duration of work to be increased with better wages, similar to what prevails in agriculture in their respective villages.