Union Budget 2020 India: The government is likely to allocate close to Rs 70,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme in financial year 2020-21, up 16% from the budget estimate for the programme for the current FY.
In the last Budget (2019-20), the outlay for the popular scheme saw a marginal decline to Rs 60,000 crore from Rs 61,084 crore (revised estimate) for 2018-19.
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However, given the unmet demand for daily jobs under guaranteed wages under the scheme, the finance ministry has recently increased the outlay for 2019-20 by Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 66,000 crore. According to official data, a sum of Rs 53,634 crore was spent under the MGNREGA scheme as on January 26 in the current fiscal, of which Rs 38,524 crore was spent on wages and Rs 12,823 crore on purchase of materials.
The MGNREGA scheme provides for a minimum of 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult member volunteers do unskilled manual work. An additional 50 days of wage employment are provided over and above 100 days in the notified drought-affected areas or natural calamity areas and to every scheduled tribe household in a forest area.
Wage rates for workers under MGNREGA, 2005, are notified annually based on Consumer Price Index-Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) by the Centre.
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Source: Financial Express
