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    ISAS Working Papers

    Long-term studies on trends and issues in South Asia

    206 : India’s Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

    Kala Seetharam Sridhar, Professor, Centre for Research in Urban Affairs at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru (India), A Venugopala Reddy ,Centre for Symbiosis of Technology, Environment and Management at Bengaluru (India).

    22 July 2015

    In this paper, we evaluate India's flagship rural employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), by answering questions such as whether the MGNREGS wages have been above their reservation wages. Furthermore, we estimate the reservation wages as a function of individual and labour market characteristics, being the first study to do this in the Indian context and compute net benefits from MGNREGS jobs. Next, we understand what demand-side (individual) and supply-side (programme) characteristics determine enrolment in the programme and determine MGNREGS wages.