MGNREGA budget exhausted in 6 months

 

• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 Aims to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• In the current financial year 87% of MGNREGA budget is exhausted with in 6 months. Supplementary demands for additional Rs.15,000 crores requires parliament's approval which is unlikely before Jan 2018.
• Utilization increasing from Rs.38,552 crores in 2013, Rs.36,025 (2014), Rs.44,002 (2015) and Rs.40,100 (2017-6m) indicates increasing rural employment distress.
• Average household employment provided decreased from 45.97(2013), 46.02(2014), 48.85(2015), 40.17(2016) and 45.97(2017) days against guarantee of 100 days of employment indicates apathetic attitude of Modi-BJP towards rural poverty alleviation.
• MNREGA (Congress UPA's scheme) was bitterly criticized by Modi in 2014 in his inaugural speeches in parliament but he too failed to alleviate rural poverty and its budget increasing while number of household days getting reduced year after year.