ABSTRACT
Having experienced a failure of the trickle down hypothesis in the post-independence period, India started to lay emphasis on the promotion of welfare of the rural mass through various rural development programmes. However, the initiatives taken by the Government in the form of general poverty alleviation programmes could not generate expected results. Even in the post liberalization period, India, in the backdrop of an increasing growth rate, experienced a stagnant, if not deteriorating, poverty situation coupled with a fall in the annual growth rate of rural employment. Although from the nineteen sixties onwards the state has been implementing targeted poverty alleviation programmes for directly benefiting the poor, these programmes massively suffered from targeting errors and leakages. Research studies have identified the power relations, class difference, economic status, gender issues, caste, social reputation and political adherence as the local factors behind these errors and leakages. Against this background, in this study we have focused on MGNREGS, the biggest wage employment programme for poverty eradication in recent times. Many studies have found that this right based, self-targeted programme too suffered from deficiencies in service delivery. We have tried to find out different factors playing determining role in generating benefits under this programme. Household level studies in two districts of West Bengal have been undertaken for the purpose. An econometric analysis of the findings of our survey reveals that beside a few social factors, political patronage plays a vital role in generating benefits. Economic factors have almost no role in the whole process.
