MGNREGS: 40% allocation of FY25 spent in only the 1st quarter
Underlining the importance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) scheme in job-starved India once again, a report by Financial Express says that official data shows that almost 40 per cent of the whole year’s (financial year 2024-25, or FY25) allocation for the scheme has already been spent in just the first quarter.
Till July 10, the Union government has spent Rs 34,056 crore on the MGNREGS, which constitutes 38.26 per cent of the Rs 89,000 crore allocated for FY25.
In FY25, 104.5 crore person-days work have been generated till now, and the number could touch the 309 crore achieved in FY24, according to the report.
Not only this, last year, the government had to enhance the budget spending on the scheme to Rs 89,000 crore from the budget estimate of Rs 60,000 crore as demand turned out to be stronger.
This shows the continued importance of MGNREGS.
Notably, it was dismissed by the Modi government when it came to power in 2014 as a needless waste of money by the UPA government. However, the Modi government could not come up with any better alternative and had to continue to resort to the scheme as a provider of income for the millions of poor across the country.
Not only could it not come up with a better alternative, but the Modi government‘s economic misadventures in the form of demonetisation and a hurried implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) put paid to the livelihood of the poor. The pandemic only added to their distress. Even during that period, faulty policies continued to be implemented.
The result of these hammerings on the economy has been borne out by various reports over the years, including two recent ones on the informal sector.
A comparison of date from the National Statistical Office shows that, in the seven (financial) years from 2015-16 to 2022-23, 16.45 lakh jobs were lost in the informal or unorganised sector across 13 states, including several big ones, and three Union territories, including Delhi.
Another report on the informal sector, released by India Ratings and Research last Tuesday, said that the economic loss to the sector from the triple shocks of demonetisation, hasty GST implementation and COVID-19 pandemic is estimated at 4.3 per cent of India’s GDP in 2022-23 or Rs 11.3 lakh crore.
