Rural distress: Last year of Govt saw highest demand for MNREGA jobs in 8 yrs -Shalini Nair

-The Indian Express

In 2014-15, the first year under of the NDA government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had dismissed MGNREGA as “the living monument of UPA’s failure’, the person-days generated was just 166 crore.

In an indicator of rural distress, the last year of the NDA government shows a marked increase in the demand for jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Official data show that in 2018-19, the demand for work increased by almost 10 per cent compared to the previous year and also registered the highest number of person-days of work under the scheme since 2010-11.

This financial year, up to March 25, the work generated under MGNREGA was 255 crore person-days with the numbers expected to go even higher. Against this, data show that the scheme generated 233 crore person-days in 2017-18 and 235 person days in 2016-17 and 2015-16 each.

In 2014-15, the first year under of the NDA government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had dismissed MGNREGA as “the living monument of UPA’s failure’, the person-days generated was just 166 crore. Under the scheme, the unit of one person-day is generally taken to be eight hours of work.

While government officials implementing the scheme attribute the spurt to the increase in the frequency of climate-change related incidents such as drought or floods that lead to a loss of the mainstay farm incomes, those monitoring the scheme on the ground state that the increased uptake of MGNREGA work also reflects the overall situation of unemployment.

Please click here to read more.