About 93% of the FY24 budgetary allocation of ₹60,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been released, a person familiar with the details told ET. This has prompted the rural development ministry to seek “substantial” supplementary demands for funds to run the scheme throughout this fiscal year, he said.
The fund requirement-which will be considered by the finance ministry this month-remains elevated despite a suspension of the MGNREGS work in West Bengal, traditionally a key beneficiary, in the wake of alleged irregularities there. On Thursday, the rural development ministry said there won’t be any fund constraint for the MGNREGS.
While a durable industrial recovery remains elusive, keeping a large section of the workforce dependent on other sectors of the economy, below-normal monsoon rainfall has weighed down the migration of MGNREGS workers to the farm sector, experts said. Industrial production until July this fiscal grew 4.8%, lower than 10% a year before, albeit on an unfavourable base.
On top of these, an expected shift of workers to sectors such as rural housing and water that witnessed a spike in FY24 budgetary outlay didn’t quite materialise, they added.
The person-day generation, which influences the budgetary allocation for MGNREGS, has hit 82% of the full-year (FY24) target so far, according to the preliminary data compiled by the rural development ministry.Person-days generated under the scheme rose close to 9% between April and September from a year earlier to almost 1.87 billion.About 192.62 million individuals opted for work under the scheme until September this fiscal year, up 4.6% from a year before.
Members of 150.65 million households demanded work in the first quarter, up 8.5% from a year before.