Demand Goes Up For Unskilled Work Under MGNREGS, 27.18 Million Households Sought Employment in May

New Delhi: Demand for unskilled work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) registered an increase in May, which continued in the early days of June.

According to data from the Ministry of Rural Development, while 27.18 million households sought work under the scheme in May last year, the figure for the same month increased to 28.39 million households this year.

Similarly, while for the entire month of June 2024 the demand was 26.40 million, it touched 13.48 million in just the first seven days of June this year, the data revealed, reported Mint.

In recent years, 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.

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

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

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

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