MGNREGS still gives work to more people than pre-Covid year

Just as the fiscal year draws to a close, about 61.1 million households have worked under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) this year. This is nearly 16 per cent less than the number of people who worked under the scheme in the preceding fiscal year (2021-22, or FY22) but still higher than the number of families that worked under the scheme in the pre-pandemic years of 2019-20 (FY20) and 2018-19 (FY19).

In FY20, 54.8 million households worked under the programme; in FY19, this number was 52.7 million.

Although the final number of households that worked under the scheme might undergo some revision in 2022-23 (FY23), experts say the revision will be nominal.