National rural employment guarantee programme and marginal farmer households: An assessment

Abstract. An important objective of National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) is to create durable community asset and private asset which can enhance agricultural production as well profitability of the farmers through increasing their Gross Cropped area. It can also help the farm households to generate few extra incomes through seeking employment in this programme. An investigation is here done to evaluate the impact of this programme on marginal farmer households of West Bengal. On the basis of difference-in-difference method, it has shown that rapid expansion of NREGP indicates more asset creation in a village economy which becomes helpful for the marginal farmer households to enhance their net farm income and overall income.Keywords. National rural employment guarantee progarmme, Marginal farm households, Impact evaluation, Difference-in-difference method, Gross cropped area, Net farm income, Total income.JEL. Q12, R28, C33, C36, C93