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In general, the return from participation in MNREGA will be highest for those women whose mobility and social interaction is least impeded by conservative social norms. However, if any intervention enhances knowledge base, or challenges traditional norms of gender, then return from that intervention may be highest for those women impede most by conservative social norms. It may be interpreted as non-monotonic effect of restrictedness across caste and religion. The purpose of this paper is to examine non-monotonicity hypothesis of social restrictedness for the intervention MNREGA.

Using primary data from three districts of West Bengal, the paper has tried to see whether there exists any non-monotonic effect of restrictedness on household’s “expenditure on consumption,” “expenditure on temptation good,” “expenditure on women’s health” and “expenditure on children’s education and health” across castes and religion. The sample is relatively homogeneous in terms of socio economic status, but differs in affiliation to castes and religion.

As a result of participating the labor force through MNREGA, the contribution of women to household earnings increases, which may potentially increase their bargaining power within the household. The conventional notion is that women who are least fettered by social norms should get maximum benefits of participation in MNREGA. However, the analysis shows that women of upper caste (UC) community have been able to exercise the highest level of agency in allocating household resources compared to the women of scheduled caste community. It substantiates the non-monotonicity of restrictedness of social norms across castes and religions. Agency of Muslim women has not increased significantly compared to the UC women.

The study suffers from usual limitations of sampling.

There is hardly any study deciphering MNREGA from the perspective of caste, religion and gender.

The purpose of this paper is to find the determinants of participation and targeting efficiency of the following safety net programs in West Bengal: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), self-targeted program; National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), subsidy based livelihood program; Indira Awaas Yojona (IAY), targeted cash transfer program and Public Distribution System (PDS), targeted in kind transfer program.

The study is based on a household survey comprising 900 households across three Districts: Murshidabad, Nadia and Burdwan.

Benefits from MNREGA and PDS are not substantial, whereas financial benefits are substantial from NRLM and IAY. This paper shows that poor people have higher likelihood of participation in MNREGA and PDS. But, non poor get disproportionate benefits from IAY and NRLM both have been designed for the poor. Therefore, targeting cannot remove elite capture altogether. Socially down trodden section have higher participation in MNREGA and PDS, whereas people who are at upper tier of social hierarchy enjoy the benefits of IAY and NRLM. However, it cannot be said that these programs miss their target completely.

The study suffers from the usual limitations of sampling.

Programs targeted for the poor are being appropriated by the non poor. If there is better targeting money will be channelized to the desired beneficiaries and welfare will be enhanced.

The study has unearthed the underlying reasons behind why some safety net programs have better targeting and some safety net programs have poor targeting.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether Government of India is successful to make credit accessible to the poor; to examine the role of competition in microfinance sector in ensuring credit to the ultra poor borrowers; to see the role of subsidy in microfinance movement.

The paper is based on secondary data. This paper examines, in an analytical framework with a variety of assumptions, the role of microfinance institutes (MFIs) in bringing capital to the ultra poor.

In an attempt to make credit accessible to the poor, Government of India took several measures, but did not succeed to a significant extent. This paper has shown that the microcredit has become accessible to the “working poor,” but not to the ultra poor. Initially the model shows that in the absence of competition MFI and moneylender are equally exploitative to the ultra poor borrowers. The model further shows that in the presence or absence of competition in the credit market, credit may be accessible to the ultra poor borrowers under certain conditions. Excessive subsidies might drive out the poor borrowers from the microfinance sector.

For the poor clients served by the microfinance institution, the argument goes, the access not the cost (interest rate) that matters (Robinson, 2001). Here the implicit assumption is that the interest rate elasticity of demand for micro credit is close to zero (Emran et al., 2006). In an interesting paper Deheja et al. (2005) has shown that the interest rate elasticity of loan in the microfinance system is significantly negative. The author is of the opinion that this is the cost of credit as well as inability to pay a minimum price of credit, which denies the access to credit.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether the government subsidized microfinance program has been able to expand physical, economic, political and socio-cultural spaces across castes, creeds and religious beliefs.

The District of Murshidabad, West Bengal, India has been chosen as field of investigation. Initial survey was conducted in 2006. Same households were resurveyed in 2008. Therefore, the data are two period panel data. During survey a stratification was done according to socio-cultural status. To remove unobserved heterogenity, difference in difference method has been applied.

The program has been found to succeed in impacting upon physical, economic and political components of empowerment, but has failed to expand socio-cultural spaces of four socio-religious communities (SRCs) namely, upper castes, other backward castes, schedule castes (SCs) and Muslims (Ms). This study also examines the impact of the program on different measures of empowerment across SRCs, and shows that program participation has significant impact on the likelihood of empowerment for members of UC community.

Participation in SGSY program enable women to negotiate gender barriers, increase their control over their own lives, and improve their relative position in their households, though to some extent. But we do not mean to suggest that participation in SHGs is the only panacea to gender subordination. The authors acknowledge the need for consciousness raising, organizing and struggling for women’s right for women empowerment.

There is hardly any study measuring the empowerment potential of microfinance program across SRCs.