Abstract
This paper tries to investigate the effectiveness of two poverty alleviation policies adopted by Indian government;(i) microfinance programme under SwarnaJayanti Gram SwarojgarYojona Scheme (SGSY) and (ii) National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to improve the economic wellbeing of the rural households. For this investigation we have to depend on Social Experiment where the drawn samples are non-random in nature. In this experiment the considered time gap between the „base line‟ period and „end line‟ period is two and half years. It is proved that there is total absence of any type of sample selection bias mainly during the time of drawing samples belong to control group. So the impact study could be done on the basis of „First differenced method‟ rather than to take the help of „Treatment effect procedure‟ calculated on the basis of two step method. It is proved from our experiment that both the government polices are jointly effective to reduce the acuteness of poverty of the rural households of India.