Over 70 per cent dip in 100 days work under MGNREGA

Chennai: With just two more months to go for the financial year 2019-20 to end, the number of households which have completed 100 days of guaranteed employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is down by 72 per cent. The number of person days generated too is down by 38 per cent.

As per government data, 14,55,805 households have completed 100 days of guaranteed employment this fiscal till January 19 against 52,59,912 in FY19 – a drop of 72 per cent.

MGNREGA is meant to provide guaranteed 100 days of employment to the rural poor. The scheme has provided an average of 41.44 days of employment per household. Even the number of households which have worked this fiscal is down at 4.81 crore against 5.27 crore last year.

MGNREGA has so far generated only 199 crore person days against 267 crore person days in the previous fiscal. Among 12.43 crore active MGNREGA workers, only 6.8 crore individuals have worked so far this fiscal.

However, of the total available funds of Rs 61,452 crore, 85 per cent, or Rs 52, 513 crore, has been spent on the scheme. Last fiscal, the total available funds for the scheme were Rs 69,228 crore and the government had spent 100.56 per cent of the available funds.

Though the average wages per day per person is just a tad higher at Rs 181 this year against Rs 179 last year, the total wages of Rs 37,453 crore paid till now is 20 per cent lower than last year’s total wages of Rs 47,172 crore.

Despite the government’s proposal to upgrade the skills of MGNREGA workers, the material and skilled wages stood at Rs 12,782 crore, 34 per cent down from last year’s Rs 16,465 crore.

The scheme has completed 56 lakh work against 90 lakh work in FY19--down by 38 per cent. However, the total number of work taken up during this fiscal was 164 lakh. This included both new and spillover works of the previous year.

MGNREGA payouts have been a key factor that has affected the rural economy adversely this year.