Economic Survey 2023: Demand for MGNREGA drops to pre-pandemic level

Regarding the composition of works, the share of “works done on individual’s land” has increased from 16 per cent of the total completed works in FY15 to 73 per cent in FY22.

The number of persons demanding work under the government's flagship rural employment programme MGNREGS was seen trending around pre-pandemic levels from July to November 2022, the Economic Survey 2022-23 released on January 31 said.

“This could be attributed to the normalisation of the rural economy due to strong agricultural growth and a swift recovery from COVID-induced slowdown, culminating in better employment opportunities,” the survey said.

A total of 5.6 crore households availed employment and 225.8 crore person-days employment has been generated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme till January 6, 2023.

In FY23, as on January 24, 2023, 6.49 crore households demanded jobs under MGNREGS and 6.48 crore were offered employment and 5.7 crore took up work.

The survey said that the number of works done under MGNREGS has steadily increased over the years, with 85 lakh completed works in FY22 and 70.6 lakh in FY23, as on January 9, 2023.

The share of “works done on individual’s land” increased from 16 percent of the total completed works in FY15 to 73 percent in FY22.

These works include creating household assets such as animal sheds, farm ponds, wells, horticulture plantations, vermicomposting pits, etc in which the beneficiary gets both labour and material costs as per standard rates.

“Empirically, within a short span of two-three years, these assets have been observed to have a significant positive impact on agricultural productivity, production-related expenditure, and income per household, along with a negative association with migration and fall in indebtedness, especially from non-institutional sources,” the survey said.