MGNREGS and the Labour Migration Issue in Ganjam District: An Empirical Assessment

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Dr.Satyabrata Patro

Abstract

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) introduced in 2006 is a novel initiative by the Govt of India to provide a guaranteed 100days employment in a year to every household to era dicate some core issues like poverty, unemployment and labour migration. Ganjam district is a village intensive district of Odisha state and most of them live in the rural and sub-urban areas. Many of these people migrate to different states for earning a livelihood leaving their families behind. This migration leads to their exploitation. Besides, they are also compelled to work in a poor environment with low pay being deprived of any government support relating to food security, education, health etc. This particular paper is an attempt to investigate the factors that lead to the preference of joining MGNREGS to migration intention or to neither of the options among the rural households. The findings suggest that lower value of agricultural assets without any additional source of income, being lower caste, and male are the significant determinants of individual willingness to join MGNREGS. Whereas, higher level of education, rising value agricultural assets/products, livestock, economic status, and submissive females are neither interested in migration nor joining MGNREGS. Thus, it can be inferred that with the increase in social status in terms of different assets with additional and multiple sources of income people, generally don’t like to migrate. On the contrary, the value of household property and family size have not any significant role in the making of decision to choose any of the options.


 

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