Socio-economic impact analysis of Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme in Andhra Pradesh: A tool for enhancing the livelihood security in rural areas

In the framework of inclusive economic crisis and economic hold back, providing livelihood security to the people is the major challenging task. In the instigation of the 21st century, 260 million people in the country did not have income to meet their both ends. India is home to 25 per cent of the world’s poor, of which 75 per cent were in the rural areas. Thus, the present paper aims to study the impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme on livelihood security of people in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh. The study area was confined to Mahabubnagar and Anantapur districts of Andhra Pradesh with sample respondents of 240 using multiple random sampling technique. The results reveals that, it was attractive to make a note of that agricultural labour accounts for major share in the participation of MGNREGS works in all the two selected districts viz., Mahabubnagar district with 48 per cent  and 47 per cent in Anantapur. In case of  social category, the results reveals that, the SC & ST population is showing much interest in attending MGNREGS works compared to other social categories. However, this trend is altogether reverse with reference to non- beneficiaries. Apart from these aspects, the study also noticed that, there was low participation of men labour (about 45 per cent in all the selected districts) in the allotted MGNREGS works can be attributed to the fact that they show much interest in other lucrative earning opportunities rather than the works under MGNREGS. However, there was a significant positive impact on promotion in generation of employment opportunities to the rural poor from the activities identified under MGNREGS programme in the study area. Hence study opinions that, After MGNREGS there was a significant impact regarding the assets creation both in terms of number and value in all the selected districts and this contributed to works creating more number of man working days of employment. Thus government should focus on more in this kind of programme to create livelihood security in nation especially in rural areas.