MGNREGA wages actually cut in govt relief package
Chennai: While announcing the relief package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman reduced the daily wage rate of MGNREGA workers by `29. Further, the increased wages may reach only around 36 lakh households and not five crore families. As part of the `1.7-lakh crore relief package, the finance minister announced that the average MGNREGA wages will be increased by `20 from `182 in FY20 to `202 in FY21.
While announcing the Covid-19 relief package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman reduced the daily wage rate of MGNREGA workers by Rs 29. Further, the increased wages may reach only around 36 lakh households and not five crore families.
As part of the Rs 1.7-lakh crore relief package, the finance minister announced that the average MGNREGA wages will be increased by Rs 20 from Rs 182 in FY20 to Rs 202 in FY21.
In a notification issued on March 23 by Ministry of Rural Development, the wages for all the states have been increased for FY21. Ranging from Rs 194 in Jharkhand and Bihar to Rs 309 in Haryana and Rs 308 in Sikkim, the national average wage rate will be Rs 231.34.
By announcing Rs 202 as wages for FY21, the government brought it down by Rs 29.
Further, the finance minister said this wage increase will provide additional Rs 2,000 per family and benefit five crore families. Only families which complete 100 days of work will receive the additional Rs 2,000. In FY20, only 36.3 lakh households had completed 100 days of work out of the 5.4 crore households.
If these 36 lakh household would have received an additional Rs 4,900 as per the wages revised by rural development ministry, now they will get only Rs 2,000 more.
The MGNREGA scheme, which was designed to lift the rural economy by guaranteeing 100 days of employment, has not been able to fully achieve its goal in FY20 either.
The government spent only 85 per cent of the available funds under the scheme in FY20 against 100 per cent utilisation in FY19. The number of households which completed 100 days of wage employment was 33 per cent less than last year’s.
The scheme had total availability of 76,102-crore funds for the full year, out of which Rs 65,174 crore has been utilised. In the previous four years, the fund utilisation was above 100 per cent or
100 per cent.
Due to lower fund utilisation, the total number of households which completed 100 days of wage employment stood at 36,30,658 against 52,59,508 in FY19, a decline of 33 per cent. In the current fiscal, an average of 47.79 days of employment was provided per household against 50.88 days in FY19.
Around 68.74 lakh works were completed in the year against 90.21 lakh works in FY19. Another 113 lakh works are still going on. The total number of works taken up during the year stood at 181 lakh and this include both new and spillover works.
The average wage rate per day per person had increased by just Rs 3 to Rs 182.02 in FY20 from Rs 179.13 in the previous year. In FY19, there was a wage hike of Rs 10. closer to