Mgnrega a Way Forward to Development: A Case Study of a Tribal Village in Madhya Pradesh

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act currently provides right of employment to the rural poor of the country. The Act provides employment guarantee to every rural household for 100 days in a year. This is perhaps the first time that the Panchayats have been provided with the freedom to plan and execute works and is backed by substantial resources, which are at their own disposal. Ideally, the Act and the programme design reflect to bring about a radical change in the rural areas as far as employment generation and creation of sustainable assets for the villages is concerned. The NREGA programme’s efficacy is based on the logic of using the productive capacity of ordinary rural folk to build and nurture productive and infrastructural assets, while simultaneously alleviating the problem of chronic unemployment and poverty. This paper is based on the study Eradication of Poverty and MGNREGA conducted recently in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh accounts for 23 percent of the total tribal population in the country. In spite of favorable resource conditions, tribal regions perform poorly in terms of infrastructure, returns from agriculture and almost all human development indicators. As compared to other sections of the Indian society, the tribal population has the lowest Human Development Index (HDI). Among the social groups, scheduled tribes (STs) have the highest proportion of the poor (54 percent), followed by scheduled castes (SCs, 50 percent). So, this paper will examine the implementation of MGNREGA in Bori village of Harda district in terms of development. It will explore the impact of MGNREGA on the lives tribes of Bori village and also present the ground realities related to the MGNREGA.