Economic survey: Poorer utilisation of budget for MGNREGA in Gujarat

Up to December, 2022 in the current financial year, against the budget provision of Rs 2,334.03 crore for MGNREGA, Rs 1,438.57 crore or 61 per cent was utilised. During the same period in the previous financial year, 87 per cent or Rs. 599.95 crore of the provisioned budget of Rs 689 crore was utilised.
While the share of employment given to women and the Scheduled Tribes saw an increase, that of the Scheduled Castes saw a marginal decrease as of December 2022 compared to the previous year.

“One possibility of the decline in persondays can be attributed to post-Covid-19 recovery, where the rural distress has eased and fewer opt for jobs under MGNREGA,” says additional rural development commissioner (MGNREGA), Vishal Gupta.

The decline comes despite more job cards issued and more works being completed in 2022-23 compared to the previous year. In 2022-23, 47.23 lakh rural families were issued the job cards as against 45.79 lakh rural families in 2021-22.

The state government has allocated Rs 1,391 crore for MGNREGA in its budget for 2023-24 announced on February 24, which is almost comparable to the Rs 1,410 crore budget outlay for MGNREGA announced in FY 2022-23. This outlay includes material and administrative costs for the scheme which includes the 25 per cent state’s share and 75 per cent of the Centre’s share.

Wages are entirely funded by the Centre’s release of funds to individual states.
In terms of works completed, 1.18 lakh works were completed as of December 2022 as against just 75,033 works completed in the same period the previous financial year.

Despite the improved figures, the percentage of those employed under the scheme who received timely payment dropped from 98.13 per cent in 2021-22 to 96 per cent in the current financial year.