Welfare mainstay NREGS off to slow start this fiscal yr

LESS THAN 57% OF PEOPLE — OR 28.8 MILLION OUT OF 50.81 MILLION — WHO SOUGHT WORK UNDER NREGS HAVE RECEIVED JOBS THIS FINANCIAL YEAR

nNEWDELHI: At a time when millions of migrant workers who have returned home to the hinterland are looking towards it for a livelihood, the government’s flagship rural jobs programme has got off to a slow start in the new financial year, government data show, amid the lockdown and social distancing norms put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Less than 57% of the people who sought work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have received jobs under the programme, which offers 100 days of manual work a year to at least one member of every rural household.

According to the official data, 50.81 million people have sought jobs under MGNREGS since the financial year started on April 1; until May 27, 28.80 million received work, generating 315 million person days of employment. In all of last year, 84.5% of workers who demanded jobs were provided work.

Economist Himanshu, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the figures reflected a slow start to the MGNREGS.

“The underlying reasons for such a low rate of jobs being provided are the initial phase of the lockdown that had stalled all activities and many states had been late in identifying works for beneficiaries. And even when the work started the health norms and social distancing order had created some restrictions,” Himanshu said.

MGNREGS had its budget raised by ~40,000 crore under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (self-reliant India programme) of the Narendra Modi government, taking total funding for the programme this financial year to more than ~1 trillion, as the Cen