NEW DELHI: MGNREGS has generated 40 crore persondays of work more than the pre-pandemic (2019-20) level – suggesting a continuing rural distress, and that job opportunities in the cities may not have returned to normal.
As 2023-24 completes, the flagship distress labour scheme clocked 305.2 crore persondays on March 31. It is a figure which is updated till the end of month and the final number will end up higher.It is in sharp contrast to 293.7 crore persondays generated in 2022-23 – roughly 12 crore persondays more.
The number in 2023-24 was expected to go down as 2022-23 was the first year after the country came out of the pandemic, and employment avenues were seen as not having returned to normal after the disruption caused by the two major corona waves which triggered the shuttering of economy across the rural-urban divide.
But instead of dipping, the work has gone up by 12 crore days and the final figure would be even higher.
However, for MGNREGS, derided as ditch-digging scheme for the poor, the true measure of what is in store as the last resort for unskilled wage earners, is the financial year 2019-20. The pre-pandemic year marked the natural trajectory of work demand under the job scheme, encapsulating seasonal disruptions like rains or drought, without the unnatural dislocation triggered by the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
The last two years – 2022-23 and 2023-24 – provide evidence that employment for the unskilled poor has not returned to the year 2019-20, when the work generated was 265.3persondays.
Critically, the persondays generated in 2022-23 were 28.4 crore more than 2019-20, and it has shot even higher by almost 40 crore in 2023-24 till date.
The work generation zoomed to an all-time record of 389.9 crore persondays in the pandemic hit year of 2020-21, and then barely slipped to 363.2 crore in 2021-22. The two years are seen as aberrations in the MGNREGS graph because of the closure of traditional work avenues owing to lockdown, and their slow return to normalcy after the virus subsided.
Rajendran Narayanan, faculty at the Azim Premji university and an expert on the job scheme, said, “There is no doubt that it shows a high demand for MGNREGS because of high levels of rural unemployment. It has been observed in various surveys.”
That the work demand and generation under the job scheme should stay elevated, and higher than the pre-pandemic years, is viewed unanimously by experts as signs of high unemployment and rural distress. The unskilled or semi-skilled workers constitute the migrant labour force which mostly finds wages in the construction sector and similar employment in towns and cities.
As 2023-24 completes, the flagship distress labour scheme clocked 305.2 crore persondays on March 31. It is a figure which is updated till the end of month and the final number will end up higher.It is in sharp contrast to 293.7 crore persondays generated in 2022-23 – roughly 12 crore persondays more.
The number in 2023-24 was expected to go down as 2022-23 was the first year after the country came out of the pandemic, and employment avenues were seen as not having returned to normal after the disruption caused by the two major corona waves which triggered the shuttering of economy across the rural-urban divide.
But instead of dipping, the work has gone up by 12 crore days and the final figure would be even higher.
However, for MGNREGS, derided as ditch-digging scheme for the poor, the true measure of what is in store as the last resort for unskilled wage earners, is the financial year 2019-20. The pre-pandemic year marked the natural trajectory of work demand under the job scheme, encapsulating seasonal disruptions like rains or drought, without the unnatural dislocation triggered by the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
The last two years – 2022-23 and 2023-24 – provide evidence that employment for the unskilled poor has not returned to the year 2019-20, when the work generated was 265.3persondays.
Critically, the persondays generated in 2022-23 were 28.4 crore more than 2019-20, and it has shot even higher by almost 40 crore in 2023-24 till date.
The work generation zoomed to an all-time record of 389.9 crore persondays in the pandemic hit year of 2020-21, and then barely slipped to 363.2 crore in 2021-22. The two years are seen as aberrations in the MGNREGS graph because of the closure of traditional work avenues owing to lockdown, and their slow return to normalcy after the virus subsided.
Rajendran Narayanan, faculty at the Azim Premji university and an expert on the job scheme, said, “There is no doubt that it shows a high demand for MGNREGS because of high levels of rural unemployment. It has been observed in various surveys.”
That the work demand and generation under the job scheme should stay elevated, and higher than the pre-pandemic years, is viewed unanimously by experts as signs of high unemployment and rural distress. The unskilled or semi-skilled workers constitute the migrant labour force which mostly finds wages in the construction sector and similar employment in towns and cities.
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