MGNREGA_SAMEEKSHA

82 Bibliography
different regions, and proposes the types for water management works under NREGS for each typology, which has the potential
to generate labour demand, while producing welfare effects.
Basu, A. K., ‘Impact of Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes on Seasonal Labor Markets: Optimum Compensation and
Workers Welfare’, Journal of Economic Inequality, US: Springer, May 2011.
Abstract: The recent enactment of the NREG Act in India has been widely hailed as a policy that provides a safety net for
the rural poor with the potential to boost rural income, stabilise agricultural production and reduce rural-urban migration.
This study models the impact of such employment guarantee schemes in the context of an agrarian economy characterised by
lean season involuntary unemployment as a consequence of tied labour contracts. Specifically, it examines labour and output
market responses to a productive rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and determines the optimal compensation to
public work employees consistent with the objectives of (i) productive efficiency in agriculture and (ii) welfare maximisation
of the labourers. The author’s framework provides a theoretical one for the evaluation of a number of (sometimes) conflicting
observations and empirical results on the impact of an EGS on agricultural wages, employment and output, and underscores the
importance of the relative productivity of workers in the EGS programme vis-à-vis their counterparts engaged in agricultural
production in determining the success of these programmes.
Bedi, Arjun S., and Subhasish Dey, ‘The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Birbhum’, Economic and Political
Weekly, vol. 65, no. 41, 9 October 2010.
Abstract: This study of the functioning of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme between February 2006 and July
2009 in Birbhum district, West Bengal, reveals that in order to serve as an effective ‘employer of last resort’, the programme
should provide proportionately more job-days during the agricultural lean season and wages should be paid in a timely
manner.
Berg, E., S. Bhattacharyya, R. Durg, and M. Ramachandra, ‘Can Rural Public Works Affect Agriculture Wages: Evidence
from India’, WPS/2012–5, Oxford: Centre for the Study of African Economies Working Papers, 2012.
Abstract: It has long been hypothesised that public works programmes, in addition to the welfare effect on those directly
employed, can influence equilibrium wage rates. In this study, the authors test the impact of the Indian government’s major
public works programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG), on agricultural wages. The rollout of NREG
in three phases is used to identify difference-in-difference estimates of the programme effect. Using monthly wage data from
the period 2000–11 for a panel of 249 districts across 19 Indian states, we find that, on average, NREG boosts the real daily
agricultural wage rates by 5.3 per cent. It takes six to 11 months for an NREG intensity shock to feed into higher wages. The
wage effect appears to be gender neutral and biased towards unskilled labour. It is positive across different implementation
stages and months. It remains significant even after controlling for rainfall, district and time fixed effects, and phase-wise
linear, quadratic, and cubic time trends. The validity of the authors identification strategy is confirmed by placebo tests. They
have argued that since most of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and the poorest of the poor are agricultural wage labourers,
rural public works constitute a potentially important anti-poverty policy tool.
Bhalla, S. S., ‘No Proof Required: Corruption by any Other Name’, The Indian Express, 4 February 2012.
Abstract: This is a secondary analysis based on both official MGNREGA and NSS data. The author has developed a corruption
index for MGNREGA based on difference in participation of the poor and non-poor and the expenditure on the poor and
non-poor under the programme.
Bhatia, K., and A. Adhikari, ‘NREGA Wage Payments: Can We Bank on the Banks’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 65,
no. 1, 2 January 2010.
Abstract: The study discusses the hardships NREGA workers face when they do not have banks or post offices near their homes.
Their difficulties are further exacerbated if the transaction is processed through the post offices because of poor record-keeping
and the inability to cope with mass payments of NREGA wages.
Bhattacharyya, Sambit, Raghav Gaiha, and Raghabendra Jha, ‘Social Safety Nets and Nutrient Deprivation: An Analysis of
the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme and the Public Distribution System in India’, ASARC Working
Paper 2010–4, Canberra: Australian South Asian Research Centre (ASARC), 2010.