With five months remaining in the financial year, the Kerala Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) mission has completed allocation of 4.8 crore person days of work out of a total of 6 crore person days allowed by the Union government for the year.
The State had earlier made a demand for funds to provide 10 crore person days of work for the year, but was provided only just above half of that. Kerala is now planning to raise further demands to sustain the programme through the year.
According to MGNREGS State mission officials, the allocated 6 crore person days of work is expected to be exhausted within the next two months as per the current demand.
In the previous year too, the State had to raise a demand for more work allocation after exhausting the allocated amount. The person days of work required each year at the State-level is collated by holding grama sabhas at the grassroot level, assessing the list of projects to be taken up and the requirement of work under each local body and preparing a labour budget.
In the financial year 2022-23, Kerala generated 9.65 crore person days of work under the MGNREGS, achieving 100.76% of the allocated labour budget for the year. Out of this, as much as 89.82% of work, amounting to a total of 8.67 crore person days, was allocated to women, while the national average for the same was 57.4%. Work was allocated for all of the 16.3 lakh families who demanded it. A total of 100 days of work was provided to 4.5 lakh families.
In 2021-22, the State had achieved a record 10.59 crore person days of work. Each year, the State raises the demand for work with the Union Ministry of Rural Development for the upcoming financial year based on the achievements for the previous year. The State now has a total of 20.97 lakh active MGNREGS job cards.
