Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Programme in India: A Review of Studies on its Implementation Performance, Outcomes and Implications on sustainable Livelihoods across States

This report is a detailed compilation of the status of implementation and performance outcomes of MGNREGA in India, as emerge from a critical review of the selected relevant literature (from the number of existing literature on the same brought out by researchers from different disciplines, policy makers and civil society organizations working at the grass root level. The dynamism cast by the implementation of MGNREGA in India, as argued by majority of stakeholders has been quite encouraging as evident from the burgeoning size of empirical studies examining the status and outcomes of implementation and performance of the programme, both at micro and meso level. The programme is now implemented for past eight years and become integral part of social safety net for the large part of the population living in rural areas. Though over the years budgetary provision for the programme is increasing in monetary terms; many of the performance parameters of the programme has shown either stagnation or decline in recent years; of course with varying experience from across the states and districts within it. It is not surprising the questions are asked about the continuing of the programme itself in it’s present form with such a huge fiscal commitment