MGNREGA and its impacts on Rural Wage Rates

The research study is about “ MGNREGA and its impact on rural wage rates”. The objective of this study is to understand the rural livelihood of the farmers and labourers and the impact of MGNREGA . This study also attempts to understand the changing daily private wage rate after the implementation of MGNREGA. The MGNREGA is a huge public works programme and is considered as a major reason responsible for the resultant rising farm wages. This paper has tried to look into the various impacts of MGNREGA on the agricultural wages as well as how MGNREGA impacts the non-farm sector wage rates, based on the secondary data for a period of 2000-10. This study has also analysed the major factors which are contributing to the increasing agricultural wages. Using the secondary data, regression models have been constructed using male and female agricultural wage rates, mason wage rates as dependant variables. The independent variables used are MGNREGA intensity with rural population and net sown area,literacy rate, cropping intensity, irrigation intensity and per capita income The results show that the MGNREGA impacts the female agricultural wage rate and also the male wage rate. It has no impacts on mason wage rates. Different factors are operating for both male and female agricultural wage rate