NREGA in Andhra Pradesh - Analyzing the Data
CMF Research Associates: Doug Johnson, Ajay Tannirkulam

Project Publications: Doug Johnson. September 2009. Does NREGA Help the Rural Poor Cope with Bad Weather? CMF Working Paper No. 32. Doug Johnson. September 2009. How Do Caste, Gender and Party Affiliation of Locally Elected Leaders Affect Implementation of NREGA? CMF Working Paper No. 33

An innovative feature of the NREG Act is its provisions for transparency: the act itself stipulates that work records, or “muster rolls”, be made available to the public, and that local “social audits” be conducted on a regular basis (Right to Food, 2007). The state of Andhra Pradesh has taken this call for transparency once step further by making detailed micro-level data on NREGA participation in the state available to the public over the internet. To the author’s knowledge, there are few precedents among major poverty relief programs for this kind of public data dissemination. The CMF took advantage of the data's availability to conduct heavily analysis and the resultant papers and focus note reflect some of the more interesting findings.

See some related CMF documents:
# A Quantitative Analysis of Participation in MREGA in Andhra Pradesh, Doug Johnson CAB 2010 [PPT]
# Focus Note:NREGA in Andhra Pradesh - Seven Lessons from the Data [PDF]
# NREGA Data [ZIP]