It is obvious the government, mindful of a stressful fiscal situation, has become more economical with release of funds for the scheme. It had raised the budget outlay for the scheme and released funds liberally when the pandemic was wreaking havoc with the country, especially during the first wave.
A rural household has received just 47 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MG-NREGS) so far in the current fiscal year. This is against the scheme’s mandate to provide a minimum of 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to every beneficiary household in villages whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work in every financial year.
In no year since the popular scheme was launched, the target was met. Work provided under the scheme peaked in FY21 when, on an average, the beneficiary households got 51.5 days of work. That was because the government increased the spending on the scheme to alleviate the rural distress caused by the pandemic.
Interestingly, the number of households which have availed work during the current fiscal is less at 6.98 crore compared with 7.55 crore in the entire last fiscal. In FY19, 5.27 crore household got work which went up slightly to 5.48 crore in FY20.
Against the total expenditure requirement estimated of Rs 99,022 crore under the scheme so far in the current fiscal year, the Centre has released Rs 87,602 crore. Given that revised estimate in the recent Budget is Rs 98,000 crore, an additional amount may be needed just to keep the current pace of jobs supply through the year.
It is obvious the government, mindful of a stressful fiscal situation, has become more economical with release of funds for the scheme. It had raised the budget outlay for the scheme and released funds liberally when the pandemic was wreaking havoc with the country, especially during the first wave.
Compared with an allocation of Rs 1,11,500 crore for the scheme in the last fiscal year, the budgetary outlay (BE) in the current fiscal was Rs 73,000 crore. However, an additional Rs 25,000 crore was allocated for the scheme when supplementary demands on expenditure was placed in Parliament recently. In the Budget for 2022-23, allocation for the scheme has been kept at Rs 73,000 crore as well.
A total of 330 crore person days of work has been generated so far in the current fiscal against the entire last fiscal’s 389 crore, 265.35 crore in FY20 and 267.96 crore in FY19.
