Union Budget 2022-23: In demand, however MGNREGS will get no hike

There was no hike in allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) within the Union Budget 2022-23, with the Finance Ministry retaining it at Rs 73,000 crore for the following fiscal yr.
The improvement comes even because the Economic Survey 2021-22, tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament a day earlier than, mentioned that the demand for MGNREGS remains to be increased than the pre-pandemic ranges.
The scheme ensures 100 days of wage employment in a monetary yr to each rural family whose grownup members volunteer to do unskilled handbook work. It has emerged as one of many key security nets for the poor and migrant employees who had been among the many worst hit by the pandemic.

The Rs 73,000 crore determine is similar because the MGNREGS finances estimates (BE), however decrease than the revised estimates (RE) of Rs 98,000 crore  for the present fiscal yr (2021-22), and the precise expenditure of Rs 1,11,170 crore throughout 2020-21.
On Tuesday, MGNREGS was not          talked about in Finance Minister Sitharaman’s 90-minute Union Budget speech within the Lok Sabha. So far, the minister has referred to MGNREGS as soon as in her budgetary speeches — in 2020 — since she took over the publish in 2019.

According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, the demand for work underneath MGNREGS remains to be increased than pre-pandemic ranges — indicating that employment ranges, particularly for the blue collar employees, could also be removed from regular regardless of financial restoration.
“An analysis of the latest data on demand for work under MGNREGS suggests the following trends in the rural labour market: (i) MGNREGS employment peaked during the nation-wide lockdown in 2020 (ii) the demand for MGNREGS work has stabilized after the second Covid wave; (iii) aggregate MGNREGS employment is still higher than pre-pandemic level…” mentioned the survey.

According to the newest information out there on the NREGS portal, 6.74 crore households (9.75 crore people) availed the agricultural job assure scheme and 301.09 crore persondays have been generated until February 1 within the present monetary yr.  In the final monetary yr, 389.1 crore persondays had been generated, and seven.55 crore households (11.19 crore people) availed the scheme.