Centre pumps in over ₹6,000 crore in MGNREGS

NEW DELHI: The Centre has pumped in an additional ₹6,084 crore in the flagship rural job programme, widely seen as a part of its resource mobilization to spruce up the rural and agricultural sector ahead of the election.

The new allocation in the revised estimate takes the total annual allocation to the scheme to ₹61,084 crore in 2018-19, the highest-ever allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme. The scheme offers alternative jobs for distressed farmers, labours for rural housing and creation of individual assets. In the past four years, the rural ministry has focused on creation of durable assets under the rural job scheme to help farmers find alternative means of livelihood.

In the general budget placed before Parliament in February 2018, MGNREGS got more than ₹55,000 crore—making it the richest scheme of the government.

According to insiders, the enhanced allocation—in the latest supplementary demand for grants—will help the government pour more money in the key rural sector ahead of the election and at a time when a large part of the country is reeling under farm crisis. “...NREGA is transforming rural India into a more productive, equitable and connected society. It has provided nearly 235 crore person days in the last three years, each year. This year as well, it will be around the same making it four years of consistent high performance on wage employment with durable assets for sustainable livelihoods,” said the official release. “It serves the twin purpose. Skilled youth gets alternative jobs in building houses and poor people get their home,” said a senior official.

HT had earlier reported how the focus of the MGNREGS has shifted from creating public assets to individual assets.