MGNREGA work demand dips 26% in Aug with spike in kharif sowing

While the civil society felt the drop could be due to a squeeze in funding with the Centre directing states to cap MGNREGA labour budget spending to 60 per cent in the first six months

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Demand for work under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) dropped by 26 per cent in August 2025 as compared to the corresponding month of last year. 

August marked the second straight month when the demand for the scheme saw a contraction. Some experts said the drop in demand is mainly due to a spike in sowing of kharif crops across India as farmers scrambled to make the best use of the copious August and labourers got absorbed in the fields. 

While civil society experts felt the drop could be due to a squeeze in funding with the Centre directing states to cap MGNREGA labour budget spending to 60 per cent in the first six months. 

They felt the demand drop will spill over into September as well. The incessant rains in rural parts of the country made several work sites  inaccessible for labourers, and could have contributed to halting the field work. Also, conventionally, July and August are lean months for MGNREGA as sowing activities are carried out at full steam across India.

 

As per the latest data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the cumulative all-India rainfall in August was 5.2 per cent more than normal with some regions such as north-west India receiving the highest rainfall since 2001 and 13th-highest since 1901. 

Until August 22, kharif crops have been sown in around 107.39 million hectares, which is 3.54 million hectares more than the area covered during the same period last year, with paddy and maize leading the way.