Book Review: Sonalde Desai, Prem Vashishtha and Omkar Joshi, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556117726849 |
| Author | Ashok Pankaj |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews 691
I would venture a concluding thought, as follows. The students will be immensely
helped if the editors may consider bringing out a Hindi version of the book.
A larger number will then be able to access it. It is important that this happens.
A book of this significance needs to be made accessible to a larger number than
can access it when it was available only in the English language.
Arvind K. Sharma
Former Professor of Public Administration, IIPA, and
Vice-Chancellor, Mizoram University, Aizawl (Mizoram), India
Email: arvind.sharma41@gmail.com
Sonalde Desai, Prem Vashishtha and Omkar Joshi, Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for
Rural Transformation. New Delhi: NCAER, 2015, 191 pp., price not
mentioned.
DOI:10.1177/0019556117726849
The surfeit of literature on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act/Scheme (MGNREGA/S) is conspicuous by the absence of robust
empirical analysis of the impacts of the programme that requires systematic
collection of (preferably panel) data over a period of time, at least two points of
time, through repeat survey(s) of beneficiaries. Dutta, Murgai, Ravallion and
Walle (2014) have made a meaningful attempt in this regard through their study
of MGNREGS in Bihar, one of the poorest and one of the low performer states of
India. However, their findings, although valuable, suffer from the limitations
arising out of the fact that the low level of employment generation in the state
restricted the impacts of the programme. Statistical tools have limitations to
compensate for this factor.
The study under review fills an important gap in the literature on the MGNREGS
by providing robust empirical analysis of the impacts of the programme, based on
all India panel data collected from 26,000 rural households (10 per cent were
lost in the repeat survey) who were interviewed in 2004–2005, the year before
the commencement of the programme, and in 2011–2012, after completion of
5 years of the programme. The data were collected as part of the India Human
Development Survey, a joint research programme of the NCAER and University
of Maryland. The analysis carried out in this report pertains to some of the most
pertinent aspects of the evaluation of this programme, namely, effectiveness of
self-targeting mechanism, increase in household-level income and welfare, the
level of poverty reduction and changes in the rural labour market.
The first chapter of this report explains the design and features of the
programme including implementation processes. The substantive issues of
implementation and impacts have been dealt with in the next five chapters. The
concluding chapter discusses the long-term prospects of the programme by
drawing attention to the much discussed issue of balancing assets creation with
employment generation.
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