Govt allocates Rs 40,000 crore more for MGNREGS

The Government on Sunday announced an additional allocation of Rs 40000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in order to generate more livelihood opportunities in the villages and ease the distress caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pledged the additional allocation of Rs 40,000 crore for the MGNREGS while announcing the fifth tranche of the stimulus package to revive the economy devastated by the lockdown enforced to contain the pandemic. The additional allocation of Rs 40000 crore would take the total allocation for the rural job programme in 2020-21 to Rs 101,500 crore. This is going to be the largest ever allocation for the scheme since it was launched by the erstwhile Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2006.

“This will help generate nearly 300 crore person-days in total. This will also help provide more work, including for returning migrant workers,” said the Finance Minister. “It will help creation of larger number of durable assets, including the ones for water conservation, and will boost the rural economy through higher production.”

The Finance Minister had allocated Rs 61,500 crore for the MGNREGS in 2020-21 while presenting the Union Budget on February 1 last.

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The Government had allocated Rs 60000 crore for the scheme in the previous Budget for 2019-20. Though the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) had asked for a hike of Rs 20000 crore in the revised allocation for 2019-20, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) had only increased it by Rs 11002 crore to Rs 71000 crore. The allocation for the scheme in 2020-21 had in fact been Rs 9500 crore less than what had been earmarked for it in the revised estimate of the previous financial year.

The MGNREGS – mandated by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – is designed to guarantee at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household having adults ready to do unskilled manual work.

The lockdown, which was enforced on March 25 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in a huge loss of employment across the nation and triggered an exodus of tens of thousands jobless migrant workers from the cities to the villages. Though the implementation of the MGNREGS was also suspended during the first few weeks of the lockdown, the government later exempted works under the scheme from April 20 in order to help generate employment opportunities in the villages.

The Centre so far released Rs 23119.21 crore to the State Governments for implementation of the MGNREGS after the new financial year started on April 1. The State Governments so far generated altogether 15.85 crore person-days and spent Rs 10,456.13 crore, providing employment to 1.67 crore villagers.

The MoRD officials said that the additional allocation for implementation of the MGNREGS would help meet the demand for works, which was expected to grow across the country in the coming months, including during the monsoon season.