Rs. 6000 Crores have been added to the rural employment scheme MGNREGA, the government announced this on Tuesday, and the total allocation is now Rs. 61,084 crores.
The grant was approved when several civil society members, lawmakers, activists, bureaucrats, and leaders of movements wrote a letter to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Union Rural Development Ministry said: “The government of India has allocated an additional Rs. 6,084 crore to MGNREGA. This brings the total allocation to the scheme to Rs. 61,084 crore in 2018-19, making it the highest ever allocation.”
In the last 4 years, major reforms have been done in the MGNREGA. This was done to help it transform into a resource that can be sustainable and be helpful for the poor. The government hopes the reforms in the act will bring better lives for the poor through its wages.
The government and the ministry says that in 2014-2015 more than 29.44 lakh works were completed, and numbers have now increased to 61.9 lakh completed works.
26.85 percent of payments were generated within 15 days in the year 2014-2015, numbers have now jumped to 91.82 percent. In addition to that, the total funds that were allocated in 2014-2015 were Rd. 37,588 crores.
99% of the fund in the MGNREGA scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) was exhausted on January 1.
And this is when almost 250 activists and lawmakers started to write letters and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work on strengthening the scheme and “formally include it as part of the set of measures being considered to deal with the current rural and agrarian crisis”.