Nregs: First year of Covid offered highest working days under NREGS, 2023-24 was second best

Visakhapatnam: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) generated an unprecedented 25.9 crore person-days in the financial year 2020-21, marking the number of person-days the highest ever under the scheme in the history of Andhra Pradesh. Due to the various stages of lockdown and curfew during the initial months of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of workers flocked to their native places within the state. This strong surge required the integration of these people into the system, thus offering them temporary employment. Around 48 lakh families benefited from the scheme in 2020-21. The Andhra Pradesh government itself has facilitated the return of around 1.3 lakh migrant workers from different states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, among others, in using various modes of transport during the confinement period. Transitioning to the previous financial year, 2023-24, the state recorded 25.5 crore person days, ranking as the second highest figure in Andhra Pradesh. While around 48 lakh households engaged in this work in 2020-21, around 46.55 lakh households availed this opportunity in 2023-24. The number of families benefited from the scheme was 46.74 lakh in 2021-22 and 45.83 lakh in 2022-23. It is interesting to note that almost 55 to 60% of the total workers who have benefited from the program over the last four years are women. The number of person days devoted to women out of the total stood at over 60% in 2022-23 and 2023-24. It was above 57% in 2020-21 and 2021-22. As NREGA works are mainly carried out near villages, they attract more women workers due to social restrictions preventing them from going to work. On the other hand, men can migrate or travel to distant places to work. Gandi Nayana Babu of Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam said that there are still several discrepancies in the implementation of the program on the ground. “The primary objective of the system should be to create jobs during the agricultural off-season, from January to June. The salaries announced by the government do not reach the majority of beneficiaries. Thousands of new job cards were created during the pandemic in Andhra Pradesh under the scheme while jobs remained unchanged,” said Nayana Babu. Dr V Sreemannarayana Murthy, head of the department of sociology, Andhra University, observed that the implementation of the NREGA scheme has led to a shortage of available workers in some parts of the state, the labor force rural work being attracted to the program. “It is manageable for large farmers who can deploy technologies and machinery for agriculture. However, this is not feasible for small and marginal farmers who struggle to find labor for their agricultural activities. In some parts of the state, works carried out under NREGA are failing to generate beneficial or valuable assets,” said Dr Murthy.