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According to the report, employment generated under MGNREGS dropped by 16.6% in the first half of the current financial year as compared to the previous year while there has been an 8% decline in the number of active workers
According to the LibTech India report, employment opportunities under MGNREGS have dropped significantly to 154 crore person-days between April and September this year as compared to the corresponding period last year when this figure was 184 crore person-days. Representational image
Employment generated under the Centre’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) dropped by 16.6% in the first half of the current financial year as compared to the previous year, with Tamil Nadu and Odisha seeing the sharpest decline, according to a report on the scheme’s implementation by non-profit LibTech India, released on Friday.
The report also highlighted that there has been an 8% decline in the number of active workers (meaning those who have demanded work even for a day over the last three financial years) in April-September 2024-25, as compared to the same duration last year. The data for analysis has been sourced from the official MGNREGS website as of October 10, 2024, it said.
Government response
Responding to News18’s query on the concerns raised in the report, the ministry of rural development (MoRD) said that MGNREGS is a demand-driven wage employment scheme that provides for the enhancement of livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work.
“It provides livelihood security, i.e., fallback options for livelihood for rural households when no better employment opportunity is available,” the ministry said.
During the current FY 2024-25 (as of October 25, 2024), the total number of active workers is 13.20 crore while employment offered to households is 99.81% against the demand, as per MoRD’s reply.
The budget estimate is also on an increasing trend. During the FY 2023-24, the budget allocation was Rs 60,000 crore at the BE stage which is Rs 86,000 crore during the current FY 2024-25, the ministry said.
Drop in person-days
According to the LibTech India report, employment opportunities under MGNREGS have dropped significantly to 154 crore person-days between April and September this year as compared to the corresponding period last year when this figure was 184 crore person-days.
In 2022-23, the number of person-days generated during the same period was 166 crore, as per the report.
Person-days generated under MGNREGS refer to the number of days of employment provided to rural households under the scheme.
After an increase in person-days generated from 166 crores in the financial year 2022-23 to 184 crores — which was a 10% rise — a significant decline is observed in the current financial year, with person-days dropping to 153 crores, which is a 16.6% decrease, the report said.
It highlighted that 14 states saw a decline in the number of person-days of work generated while six states saw an increase in April-September 2024-25 as compared to the corresponding duration in 2023-24.
Tamil Nadu (59.1%) and Odisha (49.7%) saw the biggest drops at 59.1% and 49.7%, respectively while Maharashtra at 66% and Himachal Pradesh at 53.4% experienced the highest rise in person-days.
Notably, the list of states doesn’t include data from West Bengal, as the scheme has been halted there since December 2021, when the union ministry of rural development stopped the funds, citing large-scale corruption in the state and invoking section 27 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
“It is reasonable to infer that the number of person-days generated would have been even higher if the wrongly deleted workers had been reinstated, highlighting the substantial reliance of workers on NREGA. This observation emphasises the consistently high and growing demand for employment opportunities under the scheme,” the report stated.
NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a civil society organisation that works closely for workers’ rights and also is part of releasing the report, said that the number of reduced person-days is not a drop in demand, but the reduced opportunity for work
Nikhil Dey, member of NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, said, “The decline in person-days shows the shrinking base workers participating in the scheme not because of reduced demand but due to several factors that even those seeking work are not able to get it, which include job card deletion or they have been rendered ineligible under the mandatory Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS). The other factor is the reduced budget under the scheme for the last three years, which is not allowing as many opportunities of work under the scheme to the vulnerable rural population.”
ABPS was made mandatory on January 1 this year.
39 lakh job cards deleted
According to the report, while 85 lakh workers were deleted from MGNREGS, only 45 lakh were added. Thus net deletion of workers stood at 39 lakh, raising concerns about wrongful deletions.
“The union government’s strong push for implementing the Aadhaar-based payment system, coupled with the failure of state governments to adequately address erroneous deletions, has exacerbated the issue,” the report stated.
As per LibTech India’s previous year’s report, more than 8 crore workers were removed from the MGNREGA registry during FY 2022-23 and 2023-24. Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Assam, and Odisha are among the few states that have reported 4 to 14 per cent net deletions.
As per the report, 27.4 per cent (6.7 crore) of all MGNREGS workers are ineligible for APBS. Though the Centre has directed states to not deny work under the scheme to those who are ineligible for ABPS, the report said, “We have come across 200 cases in 10 states where workers (those ineligible for ABPS) are being denied work by frontline officials fearing non-payment of wages.”
According to MoRD’s reply in the Lok Sabha in February this year, a total of 85.64 lakh (as of February 1, 2024) job cards have been deleted for various reasons including “duplicate job cards”, “not willing to work”, “the family moved from Gram Panchayat permanently”, and “a single person in job card, who has expired”.
