Annamalai’s reference to population in MGNREGS raises eyebrows

The BJP State president K. Annamalai’s tweet on Sunday, wondering how more populous States than Tamil Nadu had received less funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), has raised eyebrows among longstanding observers of the scheme. 

The reason is simple: population has never been a parameter for the allocation of funds under the Scheme. As has been stated repeatedly, the Centre, while answering a question on Friday (March 28) in the Rajya Sabha, pointed out that “Mahatma Gandhi NREGS is a demand driven wage employment Scheme. Fund release to the States/Union Territories is a continuous process and [the] Central Government is committed for [sic] making funds available to States/UTs for the implementation of the Scheme as per demand for work on the ground.”  The reply was given by  the Union Minister for Rural Development Shivraj Singh Chouhan to the question of V. Sivadasan. 

Also, a notification issued by the Union Ministry of Rural Development on January 3, 2014 which is known officially as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Schedule I and II Amendment Order, 2013 and which is in force, specifies the core objectives of the Scheme.  The first core objective, according to the notification, is this: (a) providing not less than one hundred days of unskilled manual work as a guaranteed employment in a financial year to every household in rural areas as per demand, resulting in creation of productive assets of prescribed quality and durability. The operative phrase is “as per demand.” This is why the Union government has been mentioning time and again that the MGNREGS is a “demand driven scheme.”

The March 28 reply says that with regard to the wage component, the funds released to the State  for three years were as follows: 2021-22: ₹7,358.88 crore; 2022-23: ₹7,469 crore and 2023-24: ₹10,191.64 crore. An official says that during the year 2024-25, the State received ₹5,541 crore under the component as on March 31 with the arrears being about ₹3,050 crore. Since 2021-22, the State got around ₹30,560 crore.