Employment Guarantee Programme and Pro Poor Growth : The Study of a Villiage in Gujarat

This study argues that a well-designed wage-employment programme, with a guarantee component, can not only address the immediate problem of ensuring employment and wages to the poor at the bottom, but can also contribute towards promoting pro-poor economic growth. This study builds a village-level social accounting matrix (SAM) to estimate the employment, income and output multiplier impacts of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) works in a village in Gujarat. These multipliers tend to increase with time. NREGA works can also relieve women from the drudgery of unpaid work like collection of water, fuel, wood, fodder, material for shelter, craft etc., by strengthening local infrastructure. The reduction in unpaid work can promote gender equality as well as increase multiplier impacts through women's participation in NREGA. The study has identified an approach to maximise the values of the multipliers in the short and long runs. One needs to focus on the basic entitlements of NREGA that form the core of the act.