ABSTRACT
This chapter features an investigation of the role street-level bureaucrats play in the implementation of rural employment policy in the Jharkhand province of India. The aim of the study is to highlight the bottlenecks in MGNREGA application and thereby engage in conceptual approaches based on empirical evidence obtained from the fieldwork in four villages of Jharkhand. The empirical observations from the fieldwork point towards three aspects: delay in delivery of wage payments, delay in procurement of construction material for building dug wells and the contravening of the provisions mentioned in the act. Based on the empirical evidence, the role of street-level bureaucrats and their impact on addressing the problems’ faced by beneficiaries is discussed. In the process of examining the bottlenecks in MGNREGA implementation in Jharkhand, the functional operation at the local level emerges for the Indian state.
