Demand For Work Under MGNREGS Goes Up, Actual Job Creation Declines: Report

New Delhi: In an indication of fresh economic strain in rural India, demand for unskilled work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has seen an increase in April and May.

According to the data from the ministry of rural development, 20.12 million rural households were among those who sought employment under the scheme in April. The figure slightly increased to 20.37 million in May (till May 18), reported Mint.

Past trends have shown that demand for work under the MGNREGS increases when farm or non-farm job opportunities decrease.

While the demand for the rural employment guarantee scheme has gone up, the Union government has made no increase in the allocations under the scheme since the last fiscal year.

The Narendra Modi government has allocated Rs 86,000 crore to the scheme – the same amount as what was spent on the scheme as per the Revised Estimate of 2024-2025. Rs 86,000 crore is also the exact amount that was promised in the Union Budget of 2024-25, presented in July, 2024, after the National Democratic Government came to power.

Deletion of 5.9 crore workers and 2.1 crore families across the country

A private study titled “The Missing Work: A National Review of MGNREGA Implementation (FY 2024–25)” and undertaken by LibTech India has revealed that in 2024-25, the scheme saw increase in workers and job cards but actual job creation declined.

According to the study the scheme saw a net addition of 1.16 crore job cards and 1.31 crore workers in 2024-25, reported The Telegraph.

But the study also revealed that the scheme witnessed a net deletion of 5.9 crore NREGA workers and 2.1 crore families across the country in the previous two financial years.

The report adds that even though many deleted workers were reinstated, it did not translate into improved work opportunities as there was a significant drop in all employment indicators.

The scheme witnessed a drop in the persondays of work generated from 289 crore in 2023-24 to 268 crore in 2024-25. The average days of employment per household also decreased from 52 to 50 in this period, said the report.

The United Progressive Alliance-era scheme has often been the site of the Modi government’s drive to play down rural distress. However, it has played a major role in the post-COVID crisis of jobs. Reports have noted how demand for work under the rural jobs programme fell in 2023-24, compared to the peak of COVID, but was still 15% more than the average demand between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

The 2023-24 Lok Sabha Standing Committee’s February 2024 report on rural employment through the MGNREGA said that the reduction to the scheme in budgetary allocation in 2023-24 was “puzzling and needs to be looked into”.

In 2015, Modi had called MGNREGS a “living monument to the opposition’s failures.”

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