Spending on rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGS overshoots FY24 estimates by 23%
₹20,000 crore, or 23%, according to data from the rural development ministry released recently. The revised FY24 estimate for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was ₹86,000 crore, and the actual spending has come to ₹1.06 trillion. However, compared to the ₹1.01 trillion spent on rural jobs in FY23, the increase is only about ₹5,000 crore.
And when adjusted for rising cost of materials, it may not signify much change, but the subdued rise had more to do with job opportunities in other areas than a lack of demand. The MGNREGS provides a legal guarantee of 100 days of employment in a financial year to adult members of a rural household who demand employment and are willing to do unskilled manual work in rural areas. When contacted, the government's chief economic advisor Anantha Nageswaran didn't provide comments.
The secretaries of the rural development ministry and department of economic affairs didn't respond to emailed queries. The moderate increase in MGNREGS expenditure in FY24 comes in the backdrop of a fall in agriculture growth due to erratic monsoons, which according to the government's second advanced estimates is likely to have slowed down to 0.7% in FY24, from 4.7% in FY23. Normally, lower conditions like erratic monsoons lead to fall in agricultural jobs in rural areas and, consequently, higher MGNREGS job demand.
However, last fiscal, a boom in construction and infrastructure sectors and election-related work could have kept the demand for guaranteed rural jobs from seeing a major spike. The construction sector is projected to grow at a robust 10.7% in FY24, up from 9.4% in the previous year, according to the second advanced estimate of the government. Experts said that
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