Abstract
Kalahandi is one of the tribal dominated districts of Odisha. The district has a total of 449456 tribal people which constitutes 28.5% of the total population as per 2011. The livelihood of tribal people is mostly dependent on forest, agriculture and animal husbandry. The Government of Odisha came forward to interfere the livelihood of the tribal through Focused Area Development Programme (FADP). The decadal Perspective Plan for FADP aims to cover about 5.12 lakh tribal families. Convergence of Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub-Plan (SCA to TSP) and Article–275(1) funds with national or state flagship schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), National Horticulture Mission (NHM), Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), Biju Krushak Vikas Yojana (BKVY) etc. has been proposed in this Plan. Among these schemes, MGNREGS is a right-based, demand-driven and guarantee wageemployment programme. It was implanted in Kalahandi district in first phase of its operation. It aims at providing at least 100 days of wage employment to the rural households in every financial year. The programme not only helps in improving the livelihood of the rural people including tribal people but also but also puts emphasis on inclusive growth, creation of durable assets, protection of environment, empowerment of rural women and reduction of rural-urban migration. Under this backdrop, the present study tries to examine the livelihood status of trial people through employment generation under MGNREGS programme in Kalahandi district of Odisha. The study is based on secondary data collected during the financial year from 2012-13 to 2017-18. In order to analyse the data, simple statistical tools are used. The result of the study shows that the person days of employment generated to ST workers is ranged between 35% and 38%. The annual growth rate of persondays generated is negative over the period of times. This gives an impression that the MGNREGS is not effective in providing the livelihood to the tribal people. The study concluded that the livelihood status of the tribal people in Kalahandi district has not improved even though implementation of the scheme.
Keywords: Tribal Economy, MGNREGS, Livelihood of Tribal People, Kalahandi Abstract
