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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Lockdown Woes: How Successful Have the Centre's Efforts to Boost NREGA Been? -Debmalya Nandy

-TheWire.in

Despite a welcome increase in budgetary allocation, it's less clear if the programme was able to truly serve the massive rural demand that was sparked by the lockdown.

The finance ministry announced an additional allocation of Rs 40,000 crore in May 2020 to boost India’s rural job programme. It was announced that the supplementary allocation will be over and above the Rs 61,500 crore that was the budgeted estimate for the financial year.

The increased allocation thus took the total Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA or NREGA) budget to Rs 1,01,500 crore.

However, at the beginning of the year, a little more than Rs 10,000 crore was pending in payments for previous years, which means effectively about Rs 90,000 crore was available towards expenditure for 2020-21.

In May, June and July, the country witnessed a great surge in NREGA demand, about 50% more than the same period last year. Soon after, however, the bulk of the allocation got exhausted due to extensive demand for work under the scheme. About half of the funds were used within the first four and a half months of the financial year. Despite various independent studies and news reports showing inadequate availability of work across the nation, the fact that the funds were used up very fast only highlights how the scheme needed much more than what was on offer.

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