Centre earmarks 65% MGNREGA funds for over-exploited water blocks

The rural development and Jal Shakti ministries has directed allocation of 65% of MGNREGA funds to over-exploited water blocks and 40% to semi-critical zones under a new water security plan

The Ministry of Rural Development, together with the Ministry of Jal Shakti, has launched a joint initiative to earmark around 65 per cent of annual Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) funds for water conservation activities in ‘over-exploited’ blocks across the country.

 

Directives under the MGNREGA Act of 2005 have been issued to enable the spending of 40 per cent of the MGNREGA budget in ‘semi-critical’ water blocks, while 30 per cent of the funds will go towards water conservation even in non-critical blocks.

 

Interestingly, according to the MGNREGA website, in 2024-25, around 66 per cent of the scheme’s budget was already spent on natural resource management in Mission Water Conservation (MWC) blocks.

 

 

MWC blocks are those identified under the Mission Water Conservation initiative, receiving focused attention and resources to implement watershed development programmes.

 

Meanwhile, the latest directives under the MGNREGA Act were announced jointly by Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Jal Shakti Minister Chandrakant Raghunath Patil while launching the National Initiative on Water Security at Krishi Bhawan. 

 

Chouhan said that in 2025-26, from the ₹88,000 crore MGNREGA budget, 65 per cent has been allocated for ‘dark zone’ districts, 40 per cent for ‘semi-critical’ districts, and 30 per cent for other districts towards rainwater harvesting.

 

According to the Central Ground Water Board’s National Compilation on Dynamic Ground Water Resources of India, released in 2024, 11.13 per cent of blocks in the country were assessed as ‘over-exploited’ (down from around 17.24 per cent in 2017), 3.05 per cent as ‘critical’, 10.54 per cent as ‘semi-critical’, and 73.39 per cent as ‘safe’. A total of 6,746 blocks were assessed in this survey.

 

Reiterating the importance of water, Chouhan said: “Water is life. If there is water, there is a tomorrow and a today. Without water, nothing is possible.”

 

He added that the Prime Minister had instructed, in a meeting of the Council of Ministers, that a fixed portion of MGNREGA funds must be earmarked for water conservation, following which the fresh directives were issued.

 

He said that henceforth, nationwide, MGNREGA resources will be channelled with priority into water conservation, boosting groundwater recharge and accelerating conservation drives. This policy ensures that resources are directed to areas of greatest need, shifting the approach from reactive to preventive and long-term water management.