MGNREGS has raised welfare, brought down inequality, says study
Live MintAt a time when political parties across the spectrum are searching for ways to provide cash transfers to rural and poor Indians, one such policy, started more than a decade ago, has come in for praise from a new study. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was launched in 2006 to provide 100 days of employment to villagers in the lean season, effectively working as a conditional cash transfer programme. That scheme seems to have improved the well-being of beneficiaries significantly in Andhra Pradesh, a research paper by Klaus Deininger of the World Bank and Yanyan Liu of the International Food Policy Research Institute published in the World Development journal shows. In their study, the duo explored the welfare effects of MGNREGS on direct beneficiaries in five districts of Andhra Pradesh, soon after the scheme was first introduced in 2006. Using data from a household panel, the authors show that the MGNREGS participants had significantly increased energy and protein intake within a year of participation in the scheme.