Business Desk, ETV Bharat: Amid the Covid-19 crisis when the economy battled steep slowdown across sectors, the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) turned out to be a saviour for India’s labourers.
Total demand for work under MGNREGA this fiscal year till 12 September 2020 jumped by a huge 38.8% compared with the year-ago period, according to a written reply by the Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, number of person days generated by the scheme jumped to 1.74 billion till August 2020, up nearly 97% from 88.5 crore in the same period a year ago. Person days is the number of people working per day multiplied by the number of days worked. It gives the indication of the total work generated under the scheme.
The number of beneficiaries provided employment under MGNREGA till 12 September stood at 8.29 crore, Tomar added in his reply.
A total of 86.8 lakh new job cards have been issued during the current fiscal year so far as compared to 64.95 lakh new cards issued during the same period of 2019-20.
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Not just employment opportunities, but wages offered to labourers have also rose this year, making the scheme an all-round success. Ratings and research agency Crisil said last month in a report that the average income per person per month working under the MGNREGA scheme doubled to Rs 1,000 in the first four months of this fiscal year from Rs 509 in the previous year.
Confirming the higher expenses, Tomar highlighted on Tuesday in his written reply that the Centre has released a total of Rs 60,599 crore so far for the MGNREGA scheme out of budgeted estimate of Rs 61,500 crore for full fiscal 2020-21.
Keeping future requirements in mind, the government had already made a provision of additional fund of Rs 40,000 crore for the scheme under Atma Nirbhar Bharat package announced in May.
MGNREGA is a demand-driven wage employment scheme that provides 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to each household in rural areas whose adult members volunteers to do unskilled manual work. Every adult member of a household in a rural area, having job card is eligible for a demand for a job under the scheme.
