The Centre may increase the outlay for its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by over `5,000 crore in the 2024-25 full Budget, as demand for work is expected to go up with more houses being built in rural areas, an official told FE.
In April, demand under the scheme witnessed a moderation with the month-wise work demanded by households declining 10% year-on-year.
In the interim Budget for 2024-25, the allocation for MGNREGS was `86,000 crore. The allocation in the revised estimate for 2023-24 was the same, and official sources say, the allocation was around this level.
“We anticipate a rise in demand for work based on an internal assessment,” said the official. “The government aims to build 20 million more houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) in the next five years,” the official added.
In the interim Budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said: “Two crore (20 million) more houses will be taken up in the next five years to meet the requirement arising from the increase in the number of families.”
Since MGNREGA is a demand-driven programme, funds will be allocated as per the requirement, the official said.
MGNREGA aims to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household in rural areas, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work, mainly during off seasons.
Meanwhile, the Centre is taking various initiatives to plug leakages, which some estimates suggest, could be around 30% of the annual spending.
From January 1, 2024, the government has made the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) mandatory for payment of wages. Under the ABPS, the Aadhaar of a worker is linked with her/his MGNREGS job card and bank account.
Direct benefit transfer (DBT) has saved an estimated 10% on wages on account of the deletion of duplicate, fake/non-existent, ineligible beneficiaries till March 2022.
