Even as the opposition Congress called for an end to 'cruel attempts to throttle the MNREGA job guarantee scheme,' the Union Budget 2025 has left the outlay unchanged at 86,000 crore rupees.
The scheme, once a prominent fixture of union budgets during the UPA days, did not even find a mention in the finance minister’s speech in Parliament. However, while talking to the media in the evening, Nirmala Sitharaman defended the decision to not increase funds for MNREGA, despite the fact that funds allocated for the present financial year have already peaked.
“It is a demand-driven programme,” Sitharaman pooh-poohed hints of any step-motherly treatment to Congress’s pet project.
Also read
- Union Budget 2025: Raising 100% FDI limit in insurance could attract more global players, drive penetration
- Union Budget 2025: Criminal justice system to be in sync with new criminal laws
- Union Budget 2025: Last year vs this year - what has changed and what has not in health sector
- Union Budget 2025: Key takeaways for health sector – Experts’ views
“If as a result of demand from a state, the revised estimate shows (an increased demand), (then we will) increase it,” the minister said, clarifying that there was no requirement as such for the budget to give an increased figure.
“Every year, after the crop season, we will take a call,” she said.
MNREGA, or the National Rural Employment Scheme offers 100 days of guaranteed work and wages in rural areas. It was pushed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi who is said to have been influenced by economist and Planning Commission member Jean Dreze, and was enacted through a ‘Right to Work’ bill in Parliament in 2005 when Manmohan Singh was prime minister.
The World Bank has called it “a stellar example of rural development” and is often attributed to the significant reduction of Indians below the poverty line since then.
