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K. HANUMANTHA*, V. SAILAJA, P.V. SATHYAGOPAL, K.N. RAVIKUMAR AND S.V. PRASAD
Department of Agricultural Extension and Economics, Agricultural College, Mahanandi – 518 502, A.P.
The study was conducted in Ananthapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh to study the attitude of beneficiaries towards MGNREGS. The study revealed that education, size of the family, socio-politico participation, sources of information and achievement motivation showed positive and significant relationship with the attitude of MGNREGS beneficiaries. Whereas age, gender, occupation, caste, annual income, number of years benefited, economic motivation, risk orientation and level of aspiration showed non-significant relationship.
Attitude, MGNREGS, Profile Characteristics
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was considered as the World’s largest massive public investment programme. The former Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohansingh launched the Scheme on 02-02-2006 in Bandlapalli village of Ananthapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh. The aim of the scheme was to enhance the livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Further, its primary objective was to augment wage employment and strengthen natural resource management. It was started with an initial outlay of ‘ 11,300 crore in year 2006-07 and it is now ‘ 38,500 Crore rupees allocated for MGNREGS (2016-17). Keeping in view of the importance of the programme in achieving the livelihood security of the rural people, a study was taken up to know the attitude of the beneficiaries towards MGNREGS.
The present study was conducted in Ananthapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh. Ananthapuramu district was purposively selected based on the criteria of maximum employment generation in Rayalaseema region. Out of 63 mandals of Ananthapuramu district, three mandals were selected purposively based on the criteria of maximum employment generation. From the list of
villages in each mandal, four villages were selected thus making total 12 villages, based on the criteria of maximum employment generation. From each selected village 10 respondents were selected by following the simple random sampling, thus making a total of 120 respondents. Keeping the objectives of the study in view, a semi structured interview schedule was developed and pretested. This was administered to sample respondents through personal investigation. The data obtained were coded, classified and tabulated. Finally statistical tools such as Correlation coefficient and Multiple linear regression analysis were used for the analysis of the data, so that the finding could be meaningfully interpreted and conclusions drawn.
Relationship between the selected profile characteristics with attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries
An attempt has been made to find out if there exists any relationship between the profile characteristics of MGNREGS beneficiaries viz., age, gender, education, size of family, occupation, caste, annual income, number of years benefitted, socio-politico participation, sources of information, economic motivation, achievement motivation, risk orientation, level of aspiration and with the attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries.
The results were presented in Table 1 and the relationship between each independent variable with attitude of MGNREGS beneficiaries was discussed below.
From the Table 1 it was evident that the correlation-coefficients of education, size of the family, socio-politico participation, sources of information, achievement motivation were positively significant relationship the attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries. Whereas the variables age, gender, occupation, caste, annual income, number of years benefited, economic motivation, risk orientation and level of aspiration were found non-significant relationship with the attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries.
The positively significant relationship between education and the attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries might be due to the reason that the education might have broadcast their outlook, improved interactions and association with MGNREGS officials of scheme which might have resulted in favourable attitude towards the MGNREGS. This finding was in conformity with the finding of Prasad (2005).
Size of the family was positively associated with attitude due to the reason that a family of more than three members needs more income for fulfillment of family expenditure on food and education of children. Such situations induced to frame the positive attitude towards income generation programmes.
The positively significant relationship between Socio-politico participation and the attitude of the MGNREGS beneficiaries was due to the fact that the social participation of beneficiaries might have enabled them to exchange ideas and views with other beneficiaries and the officials scheme with which they were associated. This situation might form led to a favourable attitude towards the scheme. This finding was in conformity with the finding of Prasad (2005).
Sources of information showed positive and significant with the attitude. This might be due to the regular contacts of the beneficiaries with the officials of village panchayat, mandal development office and also contacts with technical assistants and field assistants in getting latest information and also exposure to various mass media channels like television, radio, and newspaper. The information gathered from all such sources favoured in framing the favourable attitude in the minds of the beneficiaries. This finding was conformity with the finding of Meshram et al. (2006).
Achievement motivation of MGNREGS beneficiaries with their attitude was found to be significant. This might be due to the reason that the beneficiaries with high achievement motivation will work towards reaching new
targets such as increase income levels and improve the livelihood security. This helped in developing favourable attitude towards MGNREGS. This finding was conformity with the finding of Meshram et al. (2006).
Multiple linear regression analysis was carried out in order to determine the combined effect of all the independent variable i.e. attitude. The results were presented in Table 2.
It was observed in the Table 2 that the 14 independent variables with attitude taken on Multiple Regression Analysis gave the R2 (co-efficient of multiple- determination) value of 0.508 for MGNREGS beneficiaries. Hence, it could be inferred that the independent variables put together contribute 50.80 per cent of the total variation in the attitude of beneficiaries, leaving the rest to extraneous effect.
The independent variable socio-politico participation had contributed significantly at 0.01 level of probability towards the variation in the attitude. Size of the family had contributed significantly at 0.05 level of probability leaving other variables like age, gender, education, occupation, caste, annual income, number of years benefitted, sources of information, economic motivation, achievement motivation, risk orientation and level of aspiration were non-significant.
From this study it could be concluded that higher the education, higher the size of family, higher the annual income, higher the socio-politico participation, higher the sources of information and greater the achievement motivation, the higher would be the attitude. The independent variables socio-politico participation and size of the family had contributed significantly towards the variation in the attitude. MGNREGS has changed the attitude of the beneficiaries among the rural people and it is because of increasing income and employment of more days in a year.