COVID Impact | MGNREGS generates record 282.07 crore person-days' work

A labourer displays her job card at Korhar village, 35 km (22 miles) from the eastern Indian city of Patna April 2, 2009. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) means tens of millions of some of India's poorest will benefit and could play a huge role in an April-May general election, as Congress battles the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). To match feature INDIA-ELECTION/RURAL. REUTERS/Stringer (INDIA POLITICS BUSINESS ELECTIONS SOCIETY) - GM1E54D0N2O01

Three months to go for the completion of the current financial year but the total person-days under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has reached a record tally of 282.07 crore. This has been the highest since the scheme was launched in 2006.

The high number of total person-days has been on the back of migration by workers back to their villages due to the COVID-19-induced lockdown.

Prashant Singh, Vice President and Business Head- Compliance and Payroll Outsourcing, TeamLease Services, attributes the workers' migration to their villages for the record number of person-days.

Singh also noted that the continuous communication and coordination between central and state governments relating to workers' benefits, employment options and fund allocation have led to the high number.

Person workdays under MGNREGS have reached the highest tally this year by overtaking the previous record of 256.16 crore in 2018-19. Total person-days for 2019-20 stood at 254.26 crore.

An amount of Rs. 94,847 crore have been spent on the scheme so far this year.

Work generation under MGNREGS has however seen a dip from November. As per the data on the MGNREGS website, the number of persons who worked under the scheme stood at 23.22 crore in November. It dropped further to 18.97 crore in December.

This was despite more number of persons demanding work in December than in November. As many as 3.39 crore persons demanded work in December as opposed to 2.85 crore persons in November.

The number of persons who worked under MGNREGS stood at 11.92 crore in April, 50.84 crore in May, 61.34 crore in June, 38.32 crore in July, 25.56 crore in August, 25.98 crore in September and 25.89 crore in October.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act also known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was enacted in 2005. It guarantees 100 days of wage employment (manual unskilled work) to the members of any rural household every year. MGNREGA is implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development in collaboration with the state governments.