MGNREGA-LED PROGRAMME ON EMPLOYMENT GENERATION AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KARNATAKA: A CORRELATION ANALYSIS

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is one of India’s major rural employment and livelihood-security programmes, providing a legal guarantee of wage employment to rural households whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work. The programme aims to provide up to 100 days of wage employment in a financial year while also promoting the creation of durable rural assets, strengthening livelihood resources, enhancing social inclusion, and supporting decentralised planning through Panchayati Raj Institutions. Karnataka has implemented MGNREGA as an important instrument for generating rural employment, strengthening livelihoods, improving natural-resource management and supporting decentralized rural development. Person-days generated and expenditure is considered the principal indicators for assessing the employment and financial performance of the programme during the study period.The study focuses on two key employment indicators, namely person-days generated and the number of households employed under the MGNREGA fund utilisation. Descriptive statistics indicate that the mean MGNREGA fund utilisation was ₹438,550.73 lakh, with a standard deviation of ₹180,892.45 lakh, reflecting considerable variation in expenditure across the study period. The mean person-days generated was 1,067.23 lakh, with a standard deviation of 364.05 lakh, while the mean number of households provided employment was 23.03 lakh, with a standard deviation of 7.56 lakh. Pearson correlation analysis revealed a strong positive and statistically significant relationship between fund utilisation and person-days generated (r = 0.898, p < 0.001). Similarly, a very strong positive and statistically significant relationship was observed between fund utilisation and households provided employment (r = 0.960, p < 0.001). These findings indicate that higher utilisation of MGNREGA funds is strongly associated with increased employment generation in Karnataka. Therefore, the null hypothesis of no significant relationship is rejected at the 1 per cent level of significance. The study concludes that effective utilisation of MGNREGA funds plays an important role in strengthening rural employment and livelihood security in Karnataka.