

Budget 2026: MGNREGS, affordable housing, tourism—what the charts reveal
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for 2026-27 on Sunday, 1 February, against the backdrop of renewed geo-economic disruptions affecting India. With these pressures likely to spill into the coming financial year, the Budget offers a window into how the government plans to respond to a set of pressing challenges.
In this five-part series, we use charts to examine the Budget’s response across 15 key concerns. This part looks at the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), affordable housing, and tourism. Each topic has a pair of charts—one presenting the context the Budget faced, and the other showing what the Budget delivered.
This part looks at the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), affordable housing, and tourism. Each topic has a pair of charts—one presenting the context the budget faced and the other showing what the Budget delivered.
Rural jobs Employment generated under the rural employment guarantee scheme has declined this fiscal, slipping from an average of about 50 days seen in recent years. At the same time, the Centre’s budgetary allocation to MGNREGS has remained stagnant over the past two years, even as actual spending exceeds estimates more often than not.
With the new VB-G RAM G Act, or Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), Act, altering the funding structure and reducing Centre’s share, the scheme’s outlay in the Budget has been sizeable at nearly ₹1.3 trillion. Contrary to expectations, the overall spending on rural job guarantee schemes has gone up substantially for FY27. A common person’s aspiration of owning a home is slowly fading in India.
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