The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)—presently known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act MGNREGA), is an unprecedented intervention collectively by the Union and State Governments in reforming and re-energising the (rural) labour market both by the way of correcting the prevailing anomalies and in providing the livelihood opportunities / security to millions of rural poor. Most of the rural poor are largely dependent on the prospects of agriculture sector which is facing the problems of productivity in absolute and relative terms. The promised 100 days of guaranteed wage employment per household per annum at the stipulated minimum wages would not only reduce the rampant under and unemployment in rural areas, but also impact the stagnant wage structure for the rural unskilled workers.
The rights based MGNREGA emphasises on community participation in planning, implementation / execution, monitoring and evaluation—social audits of the programme. It also aims at enabling the local bodies to move towards good governance through the transparency and accountability mechanisms. Elaborate institutional arrangements have to be made to realise not only the objectives of the MGNREGA but also to make the formal—the Panchati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and other informal institutions vibrant. Thus, the efficacy of the institutional performance and active participation of the community determine the overall effectiveness of the MGNREGA.
However, the proposed paper aims to analyse the process of implementation, and the impacts and outcomes of the MGNREGA initiatives in the Scheduled Areas (SAs)—tribal areas of the Koraput District in particular and the South Odisha State, India in general covering—the concerns of livelihoods, magnitude of human migrations and affects of the pandemic (COVID 19) through the emic anthropological perspectives.
