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New Delhi: The government may need to allocate additional funds to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the second half of the year, as nearly 93% of the Rs 60,000 crore budget allocated to the scheme for the current financial year has already been used up, according to a report by the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies (CBPS).
The CBPS report also said that the average days of employment provided per household under MGNREGS in the first half of the year was only 42, which is lower than the 100 days that the scheme guarantees.
The report said that this is because the government has been allocating less and less funds to MGNREGS in recent years. In the current financial year, the MGNREGS budget is 33% lower than the revised budget for the previous financial year.
The CBPS report has called on the government to increase the MGNREGS budget to Rs 2.72 lakh crore in the next financial year, in order to meet the demand for work under the scheme and to provide the legally guaranteed 100 days of employment to all households.
The MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme that guarantees 100 days of unskilled manual work to every household in rural areas at a statutory minimum wage. The scheme is seen as a vital lifeline for millions of rural households, especially during times of economic distress.
However, the government has been reducing the MGNREGS budget in recent years, arguing that the demand for work under the scheme has declined. However, activists and economists have argued that the decline in demand is due to the fact that the government is allocating less and less funds to the scheme.
The CBPS report's findings are likely to add to the pressure on the government to increase the MGNREGS budget in the next financial year.
