MGNREGS job delivery decline was highlighted in a report by LibTech India, which noted that although the number of enrolled families under MGNREGS has grown by 8.6%, the program’s ability to deliver on its promised jobs has actually decreased.
An analysis of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for the fiscal year 2024–2025 shows that although the number of registered households under the program has increased by 8.6%, the number of person days has decreased by 7.1%, indicating a decline in the delivery of promised employment.
The total number of workdays that an individual registered under the MGNREGS works throughout a fiscal year is known as persondays. This was disclosed in a paper published on Monday, May 19, 2025, by LibTech India, an association of scholars and activists.
Just 7% of households received 100 days of labor, according to the LibTech survey. Up to 100 days of guaranteed work are promised by the MGNREG Act. According to the study, the number of households enrolled under the program increased by 8.6% from 13.80 crore in FY 2023–2024 to 14.98 crore in FY 2024–2025. Concurrently, the average number of workdays per family decreased by 4.3%, from 52.42 person days in FY 2023–2024 to 50.18 person days in FY 2024–2025. According to the LibTech assessment, this illustrates a discrepancy between the coverage and delivery of the system. The study stated that this tendency calls into question structural and implementation-level issues that still limit the program’s efficacy.
Additionally, the program’s ongoing issue with regional variances persists. The states with the biggest drops in person days were Odisha (34.8%), Tamil Nadu (25.1%), and Rajasthan (15.9%), while Maharashtra (39.7%), Himachal Pradesh (14.8%), and Bihar (13.3%) had rises.
Insufficient distribution
Inadequate budgetary allocation and unusual salary payment delays, which have been observed nationwide, are two of the main causes of the general decline in employment. Both problems have been brought to light on a number of sites. In the past, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development has expressed worry over the Union government’s cutbacks in budgetary allocation and how they affect the scheme’s advancement.
According to the People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), the MGNREGS Job Delivery Declineshould get ₹2.64 lakh crore in funding for FY 2022–2023. But for FY 2024–2025, the Union government has only set out ₹86,000 crore. The MGNREGS budget for FY 2024–2025 was left unchanged.
MGNREGS Job Delivery Decline Raises Alarms Over Structural Weaknesses and Funding Gaps
The removal of MGNREGS employees nationwide has been at least partially halted, according to the LibTech report. 7.8 crore workers were eliminated in 24 months between 2022 and 2024. According to the Ministry, both additions and removals are a normal procedure. However, the pace of additions was far lower than the rate of deletions. Just 1.92 crore personnel were added within the same time span.
According to the research, this tendency has reverted for the first time in FY 2024–2025. Thus, 2.22 crore workers were gained while 99 lakh were removed. Following the release of Standard Operating Procedures by the Ministry of Rural Development on the reinstatement of workers and job cards that had been erased, the number of additions increased dramatically in the second half of the fiscal year.
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