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The central government has released Rs 7.8 lakh crore from 2014-15 to 2024-25 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (Mahatma Gandhi NREGA), resulting in the creation of as many as 8.07 crore rural assets, the government said on Wednesday.
Ministry of Rural Development said in a release that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 was launched to enhance livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The release said that fund allocation has increased continuously over the last 10 years. Current financial year's allocation of Rs 86,000 crore, the ministry said, is the highest-ever budgetary allocation at the Budget Estimate stage. In the financial year 2006-07, the spending was Rs 11,300 crore, which increased to Rs 33,000 crore in 2013-14. "Government has spent a record Rs 1,11,000 crore under the scheme in the year 2020-21 to ensure livelihood security to people distressed during COVID19 pandemic. This shows Government's sincere commitment towards the effective implementation of the scheme," the release said. The total persondays generated between 2006-07 to 2013-14 were 1660 crore, whereas the total persondays between 2014-15 to 2024-25 has been 3029 crore, which is 82 per cent more than the decade before 2014. "Over the last 10 years, the Government's increased efforts have led to a remarkable increase in the creation of rural assets, which is evident from over 526 per cent increase in the rural assets which are geotagged and of better quality," the release said. The government asserted that women's participation in the rural employment guarantee scheme has also increased over the past years. The ministry said women's participation has increased from 48 percent in 2013-14 to over 58 percent in the current financial year 2024-25. There are 266 works permissible under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, out of which 150 are related to agriculture and related activities, 58 are related to Natural Resource Management (NRM) and 58 works are that of rural infrastructure. Various water related works such as check dams, farm ponds, community ponds, irrigation open wells are taken up under the scheme. Another major success is in the form of Mission Amrit Sarovar, which has led to the creation of over 68,000 Amrit Sarovars in the country in Phase I, the release said. (ANI)
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