Comparative Assessment between Beneficiaries and Non-beneficiaries of MGNREGA in Arunachal Pradesh: A Case of Two Districts

The present study conducted in two districts of Arunachal Pradesh viz., Lower Subansiri district and West Siang district. The selection of respondents was designed in such a manner so that a comparative assessment could be made possible between the beneficiary (i.e. job card holding families) and non-beneficiary (i.e. non job card holding APL families as control) groups with their number being 80 and 40 respectively. Thus, 120 respondent households were selected in the from the four identified Gram Panchayats by way of taking recourse to probability proportionate to size sampling, so as to adequately compensate for the Gram Panchayat having a lower number of job card holding households. Socio-personal attributes like status of self-reliance, self-confidence, self-esteem, social participation and social inclusiveness were reflective of no statistically significant change. Among beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, significant difference could be observed in terms of educational status of family members, expenditure pattern, extent of cosmopoliteness and social mobility pattern to mean that MGNREGA could not make any impact on those counts. In case of consumption pattern, there was significant difference in terms of pulses and vegetables consumption while in cases of cereals and protein (meat and fish) the differences between mean values were found to be insignificant.