The federal government has signalled that it needs to revisit the Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act scheme, arguing that it has not met its anticipated end result of poverty alleviation. File
| Picture Credit score: The Hindu
However the BJP’s important losses in rural constituencies within the 2024 general election, the first Budget of the new NDA government didn’t include any directional shift for its flagship programme for rural India, the Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act scheme (MGNREGS).
For the monetary 12 months 2024-25, ₹86,000 crore has been allotted for MGNREGS. This can be ₹26,000 crore greater than last year’s allocation of just ₹60,000 crore, however it’s nonetheless ₹19,297 crore lower than the scheme’s precise expenditure of ₹1.05 lakh crore within the final monetary 12 months 2023-24, in accordance with knowledge out there on the web site of Union Ministry of Rural Improvement. As per an evaluation by The Hindu knowledge crew, this 12 months’s allocation for MGNREGS is simply 1.78% of the entire budgetary allocation, which marks a ten-year low within the scheme’s funding.
In keeping with an evaluation by The Hindu knowledge crew, the BJP misplaced 53 Lok Sabha constituencies that may be categorised as rural seats this 12 months, compared to its 2019 tally.
‘Suppressing demand’
Yearly, the agricultural jobs scheme has been dogged by this drawback of under-allocation of funds. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has argued that MGNREGS is a demand-based scheme and that the federal government presents extra money as and when the requirement arises. However activists have argued that the decrease allocation contributes in artificially suppressing the demand for work beneath the scheme.
“Not solely is the allocation for FY 2024-25 lower than the expenditure in FY 2023-24, it additionally doesn’t take note of the elevated demand within the first quarter of this monetary 12 months. Compared to 2023-24, within the first three months of the continuing monetary 12 months, 5.74 crore extra particular person days have been generated. Moreover, the rise in wages for the present 12 months can be not accounted for,” mentioned Chakradhar Buddha, who’s affiliated with LibTech India, a consortium of teachers and activists. Underneath MGNREGS, particular person days are outlined as the entire variety of work days by an individual registered beneath the scheme in a monetary 12 months.
The truth is, ₹41,500 crore has already been spent beneath the scheme within the first 4 months of this monetary 12 months, leaving a mere ₹44,500 crore for the remaining eight months.
Reviewing outcomes
The federal government has signalled that it needs to revisit the scheme, arguing that it has not met its anticipated end result of poverty alleviation.
Additionally learn:MGNREGS would continue, but only as a living monument to failure Congress’ failure: PM Modi
“The Financial Survey, launched on Monday, had laid the groundwork to justify the low allocation, by claiming that MGNREGS demand doesn’t essentially correlate with rural misery. As a proportion of GDP, this 12 months’s allocation continues to be decrease than 0.3% and if you happen to alter for inflation, this 12 months’s allocation is even decrease than final 12 months’s. The regular mutilation of MGNREGS has been repeated repeatedly for 10 years now,” mentioned Rajendran Narayanan, who’s a part of the economics college at Azim Premji College.
