No shortfall in spending under MGNREGS

The Government has clarified that spending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has not gone down considerably this year. A statement laid in the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question yesterday states that the total expenditure incurred under MGNREGA for 2011-12 was Rs 37,303 crore compared to Rs 39,377 crore in 2010-11. The data reported by States/ UTs for 2011-12 is till 27.04.2012 with data from the states of Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland yet to be fully updated and uploaded. In the statement the Rural Development Minister Shri Jairam Ramesh said that as employment is provided on demand, persondays generated under MGNREGA and requirement of funds by the States/UTs depends on demand for employment. Moreover, demand for employment under the rural job scheme is dependent upon several factors including availability of alternate employment opportunities or delay in payment of wages. Shri Ramesh said, there have been no reports to the effect that demand for work under MGNREGA has been affected by low rate of wages. The Minister further informed that some independent studies have concluded that there has been increase in Agriculture Minimum Wages and wage earned per day due to impact of MGNREGA which has improved the bargaining power of the rural labour. Shri Ramesh said, to ensure that MGNREGA workers’ wages are protected against inflation, MGNREGA wage rates have been indexed to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour and wage rates have been recently revised based on percentage increase in the CPI-AL w.e.f. 1st April, 2012.