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Social welfare through guaranteed wage employment: experience of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in an Indian state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Pranaya Kumar Swain  and
Sthitapragyan Ray
Pranaya Kumar Swain*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research, Institute of Physics Campus, PO-Sainik School, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India
Sthitapragyan Ray
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Orissa, India
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recognition of the significance of public wage employment programmes in tackling unpredictable community “covariate” shocks and ensuring livelihood security of the rural poor has led to the enactment of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, with state guarantee of work. Implementation of the Act, our empirical findings tell us, has become the site of tangible exchanges between state and society, with factors such as the level of material support for it, the balance of power between the local state and the poor on the ground, and the larger socio-economic structure determining programme outcomes.

Keywords

wage employmentstatepovertyempowerment
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 79 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis

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