Rural schemes empowered 37 million women till June, generating 3 billion person-days in FY24, says Economic Survey | Mint

New Delhi: The Economic Survey tabled in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) generated 3.1 billion person-days and 521 million average person-days of work per household in FY24, an increase of 5.2% and 9% respectively over a year ago.

It said Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) has empowered 37 million women and promoted 9 million self-help groups (SHGs) since its launch till June last year.

The survey said that till July 10, about 115 million toilets were built under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin and 117 million households were provided with tap water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission.

The objective of MNREGA is to improve the livelihood security of households in rural areas, and to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour.

Empowering the poor

DAY-NRLM is one of the largest social sector schemes in the world aimed at providing poor households access to meaningful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities. The scheme has helped women access scientific knowledge, specialised skills and valuable experience to inspire and ignite new energy to improve their livelihoods and venture into new activities.

They have started ventures like solar panels to make sanitary pads, soaps, detergents, face masks, sanitizers, fencing materials, etc. Launched in 2011, the mission spans 7,135 blocks in 742 districts across 28 states and 6 union territories.

Lakhpati Didi under DAYNRLM launched last year aims to uplift 30 million SHG families to a minimum annual income 1 lakh within three years.

It focuses on diversified livelihood activities, district level planning, household support, coordination between government departments and capacity building of staff and community members.

“There is a need to harness the potential of SHGs by transforming them into large enterprises, leveraging professional support and management. With proper training and professional guidance, women’s groups can emerge as large-scale self-reliant enterprises,” the Economic Survey said.

Maximum effect

Although MNREGA started as a wage employment scheme, it has evolved into an asset creation programme for sustainable livelihood diversification, as seen from the increase in the share of individual beneficiary ‘works on individual land’, from 9.6% of total completed works in FY14 to 73.3% in FY24.

To achieve maximum impact from the scheme, MNREGA has been integrated with various initiatives run by different ministries like Ministries of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, AYUSH, Panchayati Raj and Defence.

FY24 data shows that although Tamil Nadu has less than 1% of the country’s poor population, it accounted for nearly 15% of all MGNREGS funds released. Similarly, Kerala, with only 0.1% of the poor population, used nearly 4% of the country’s MGNREGS funds. Together, these states generated 510 million person-days of employment. In contrast, Bihar and UP, with about 45% of the poor population, accounted for only 17% of MGNREGA funds and generated 530 million person-days of employment.

Ahead of the full Budget presented by Sitharaman on Tuesday, economists and industry experts do not expect any increase in budgetary allocations for any rural development scheme from the interim Budget except housing.

“I don’t see any change in the FY25 budgetary allocation for rural schemes; it may be the same as the one given in the interim budget,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda.

He said, “The progress of monsoon is also satisfactory now. So there is no need to do anything in NREGA and PM-Kisan – these are two big schemes on which the government spends more.” A good monsoon alleviates the rural crisis to some extent because agriculture is still the biggest contributor to the income of rural India.

Economists and industry stakeholders had earlier urged the central government to increase allocations for rural schemes and promote housing programmes to stimulate consumer demand, as private consumption has grown at a much lower rate than the roughly 8% annual economic growth.

Development of Rural India

Consumption growth has been weak since the pandemic. Private consumption is improving, growing 4% in the March quarter compared with 1.5% a year earlier, but it is yet to catch up to pre-pandemic trends and remains below the pre-pandemic average of 6.3% in 2019.

Statistics ministry data shows that rural India’s monthly per capita household consumption, adjusted for inflation, grew by more than 40% from FY12 to FY23, although it is less than urban consumption. Without adjusting for inflation, the figures are as follows 6,459 for urban households and ₹3,773 for rural households in FY23, compared to 2,630 and In FY12, it was Rs 1,430 respectively.

The focus of the government is to improve the economy through decentralized planning, better access to credit, skill development of youth, better livelihood opportunities, women empowerment, social safety net provision, basic housing, education, health and sanitation facilities, etc. As a part of the plan, it is working towards providing basic amenities to all households in rural areas through several schemes and programs.

26 million houses were constructed for the poor in the last nine years under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana to be completed by July 10, 2024, 103 million LPG connections were provided under PM Ujjwala Yojana from 2016 to June 2, 2024 and 1.5 million km of road construction was completed under Gram Sadak Yojana between FY 2015 and July 10, 2024. As per the relevant ministry data, 98 million beneficiaries are registered under Regional Rural Banks and 1.9 million beneficiaries under Rural Cooperative Banks as on June 26, 2024 and PFMS e-GramSwaraj has been integrated with more than 263,000 panchayats out of 279,000 for their payment transactions as on July 10, 2024.

Government made allocation in interim budget The Ministry of Rural Development was given Rs 2.65 trillion, which includes Rs 86,000 crore was allocated for MNREGA. This is Rs 26,824 crore more than the revised estimate for FY24.