Centre spends 22% more on MGNREGS in FY16

The Centre's expenditure on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 2015-16 was around Rs 43,848 crore, 22 per cent more than the Rs 36,025.04 crore incurred in the previous financial year.

However, a statement by the Rural Development Ministry said Rs 56,000 was incurred on the scheme in 2015-16, but of this Rs 12,152 crore was paid in 2016-17 as arrears.

This payment would now have to be deducted from the Budget allocation of 2016-17, which would also imply that extra funds would be needed in the current financial year to effectively run the programme. Also, despite higher spending in 2015-16 year-on-year, the total liabilities of around Rs 3,300 crore still remained.

Besides, total expenditure in 2015-16 should actually have been Rs 60,000 crore if the money was spent on estimates of person-days made for the year.

The Centre also claimed that the average person-days employment generated per household the last financial year fiscal under MNREGS was the highest in eight years at 49 days, even as there was improvement in timely payment of wages under the livelihood programme during the span.

In its report, titled Performance, Initiatives and Strategies FY 2015-16 and FY 2016-17, the government claimed 2.35 billion person-days' of work were generated last year. The programme, the report said, could reach irrigation potential on 4.6 million hectares with a range of natural resource management initiatives - ponds, dams, wells, check dams, afforestation, land development, water shed management works, etc - and benefited 3.4 million people.

As many as 55 per cent of the total beneficiaries were women, a large quantum of whom were from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable sections, the report said.

Union Rural Development Minister Birender Singh, who released the report at a national conference of state Panchayati Raj Ministers here, claimed the timely payment of wages resulted in bringing back beneficiaries who had distanced themselves from the scheme due to delay in wage payments.

"The 49-day average is highest in past eight years. The previous highest was 46. Also, last year the MGNREGA budget was Rs 37,000 crore, while the expenditure stood at Rs 43,000-crore plus. So, the expenditure was an additional Rs 6,000 crore. 2.4 billion person-days is also a five-year record," Singh told reporters.