New Delhi: The number of households signing up for the 100-day job guarantee Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme reached the highest figures in three years in June 2023, Indian Express has reported.

This is the third time since April 2014 – since the time monthly figures have been available – that the number of households has crossed three crores.

The 3.04 crore figure is a 10% jump over last June's numbers.

The Express report said that the only other two times that number of households availing themselves for MGNREGS crossed the three-crore mark was in May 2020 (3.3 crore) and during the COVID-19 lockdown of June 2020 (3.89 crore).

A study had found last year that the wages earned under the scheme helped compensate between 20% and 80% of the income loss incurred because of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Experts quoted in the Express report include Pronab Sen, former Chief Statistician of India, and Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist at India Ratings. While Sen attributed the jump to rural unemployment aggravated by COVID-19 and the timely release of funds by the Union government to states, Pant said the increase could be because of a weak monsoon that affected Kharif sowing.

In 10 states, over a million households are active in the scheme. Tamil Nadu leads with the highest share.

These updates come as the Narendra Modi government continues to reduce allocation for the scheme. In this year's Budget, MGNREGS got Rs 60,000 crore. As The Wire had reported, this was despite the fact that the revised estimate for FY’23 was at Rs 89,400 crore, up from the budget estimate of Rs 73,000 crore.

The scheme was brought by the Manmohan Singh government in 2006.

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