RURAL POVERTY ERADICATION THROUGH THE MGNREGS SCHEME IN ANDHRA PRADESH: A CASE STUDY

The main focus of the act is to facilitate the social protection for the people living in rural India by providing employment opportunities and therefore contributing towards the overall development of the local people. Agricultural wage earners, small and marginal farmers and casual workers engaged in non- agricultural activities, constitute the bulk of the rural poor in India. Small land holdings and their low productivity are the cause of poverty among households dependent on land-based activities for their livelihood. Poor educational base and lack of other vocational skills also perpetuate poverty. Due to the poor physical and social capital base, a large proportion of the people are forced to seek employment in vocations with extremely low levels of productivity and wages. A developing economy like India is often characterised by a labour market with demand and supply of labour and a wage that even if competitively determined may not be adequate for the poor household to reach their target income; what they consider as means of a decent living. Proper utilization of both human and material resources was the major challenges for the economic development of Independent India. At the time of its independence, the country had low level of economic and technological development, low per capital income, slow pace of development of economic and social institutions and outdated production techniques. The objective of the Independent India was to attain and accelerate the economic development of the country. Hence, the Planning Commission of India was established in 1950 to accelerate the economic development and to raise the standard of living of the people through systematic utilization of the resources of the country, increasing production and providing opportunities to all. The Planning Commission formulate the plans for the most effective and balanced utilization of country’s resources by determining priorities. The main focus of the planning commission since its inception was rural development. So far, numerous programmes proposed by planning commission have been taken up by government of India to address the problems of rural unemployment and rural poverty