39% of job card-holding households didn't get any work under MGNREGA in FY21

About 39% of all job card-holding households seeking work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme did not get a single day of work in the Covid year of 2020-21 as against the average work demand for 77 days, shows a study conducted by Azim Premji University in partnership with the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations on NREGA and Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD).

The Survey further showed that among households that found some work, the unmet demand, or the difference between number of days desired and number of days of work received, across all blocks was 64 days.

According to the study, on average only 36% of households that worked received their wages in 15 days. However, the scheme protected the most vulnerable households from significant loss of income during the pandemic, it said.


“Increased earnings from MGNREGA were able to compensate for somewhere between 20 to 80%of income loss,” showed a survey of 2000 households across eight blocks in four states.

The survey was conducted in November-December 2021 in select blocks of Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

“A conservative estimate yields that the allocations in the surveyed blocks should have been three times the amount that was actually allocated in the year after lockdown to fulfill the true extent of work demand,” Rajendran Narayanan, co-author of the study and faculty member at Azim Premji University said.

Based on the findings of the Survey in sampled blocks, the study has recommended massive expansion of the Mgnrega to deal with high work demand while doubling the field functionaries to reduce corruption.

“Increase the shelf and scope of permissible works and prioritise community works over individual asset creation to absorb more unmet demand,” it said.

“Further, there is a need to increase MGNREGA wage rates to at least the state minimum wages or Rs 375 per day as recommended by the Anoop Satpathy Committee and index with CPI-Rural instead of CPI-Agricultural Labourers.