45% MGNREGA fund spent in 4 months of Covid-19 lockdown

Even after getting a financial boost in May, close to 45 percent of Central funds, meant for rural employment and subsidised ration, have been spent in the first four months of the financial year 2020-21 to fight the economic crisis brought on by the national lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, government data revealed.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has provided employment to 90 million households between April and July, while subsidised rations under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) distributed food grains to about 720 million people during the four months, data showed.

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Speaking to the Parliamentary standing committee on labour on Friday, a rural development ministry official said that at this pace, the MGNREGS funds will be exhausted by early December. However, the official gave reassurance that MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme and that there will be no shortage of funds.

The demand for work and food peaked during June as the national lockdown was slowly eased. It dropped in July as migrant workers who had travelled to their villages and hometowns in a mass exodus migrated back to cities in search of work after travelling restrictions were lifted gradually.

Under MGNREGS, 24.2 million households were provided work in July, compared to 38.9 million in June (the highest ever monthly figure under the scheme month) and 33.1 million in May.

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Speaking to Hindustan Times, a former member of MGNREGS’s Central Advisory Council and an activist working in rural areas of Rajasthan, Nikhil Dey said, “The employment in July was less because migrant workers returned to cities and labourers got engaged in sowing work that started in July after a good spell of rains.”

Similarly, distribution of ration under the Public Distribution System peaked in June with 94 percent of the 800 million beneficiaries receiving food grains. It dropped to 91 percent in July.

About 2.8 million tonnes of rice and 21 million tonnes of wheat was distributed in June, which went down to 2.44 million tonnes of rice and 1.99 million tonnes of wheat in July.