In the recent data shared by the Union government in the Lok Sabha, average days of employment provided per household in India has not crossed 50.87 — which peaked in 2018-2019. The number has fallen to 47.84 days for the year 2022-2023.
The data was shared by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Rural Development as a response to a question posed about the employment guarantee scheme on August 1 in the ongoing Monsoon Session of the Parliament.
MGNREGS [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme], is a flagship programme of the Indian government aimed at “controlling distress migration” through providing at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to rural households. The government bears the full cost of unskilled labour and 75 per cent of the material cost, with funds released by the government to the State Employment Guarantee Fund.
Amongst other states which don’t show any major change in the days of wage-employment, West Bengal recorded a sharp decline from 76.91 average days of work in the fiscal year 2018-2019, to 49.89 days in 2019-2020, a small rise to 51.98 in 2020-2021, and again a dip to 47.94 days in 2021-2022. The average number of wage-employment days further fell to 23.24 days in 2022-2023.
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Incidentally, out of the total 6,366 crores of pending wage liability, Rs 2,770 crores is for West Bengal — that’s 43.51 per cent share of the total amount. Additionally, Rs 6,266 crore is pending as material component liability, out of which West Bengal has Rs 2,813 crores pending. This was shared as a response to another question raised during the same session.
Bihar saw a continuous declining trend in the number of ongoing works under MGNREGS from 1.3 lakh in 2010-2020 to 0.25 lakh in 2022-2023.
In Uttar Pradesh, the number of households that availed employment in the state fell from 9,406,180 in 2020-2021 to 7,020,180 in 2022-2023.
The recent budget had announced an allocation of Rs 60,000 crores to MGNREGS for the year 2023-2024 — a 28 per cent slash since last year’s expenditure.
