MGNREGA wage hike: Lowest rise at ₹7 a day in UP and Uttarakhand, steepest at ₹34 in Goa — state-wise rate here

The government on March 27 notified new wage rates under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for the 2024-25 financial year.

On average, MGNREGA wage increase is seen at ₹18 year-on-year at ₹282 for FY25 compared to ₹265 in FY24, as per calculations based on the government notified wage revision.

The move comes after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a ₹86,000 crore budget allocation for MNREGA for 2024-25. The budget estimate for FY24 was pegged at ₹60,000 crore, lowest in last four years, however the outlay was increased to ₹86,000 crore in the revised estimates for this fiscal.

The MGNREGA scheme is aimed at providing for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

As of 2023-24, there were 14.34 crore active workers deployed under the scheme.

The government data shows that under the new rates, rural workers in Haryana will get the highest wage at ₹374, followed by Goa where the rate has been decided at ₹356 while Kerala will give its workers ₹346 every day.

However, it is key to note that wage hikes under MGNREGA are unequal and vary largely across states. For instance, the increase in daily wage for rural workers in big states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand is only ₹7, the lowest among all states, whereas workers in Goa can expect their daily wage to increase by ₹34, which is the steepest increase across states. Daily wages of Mnrega workers in Karnataka too have been raised by ₹33, on a year on year basis.

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Workers in as many as 21 states will see their wages increase by anywhere between ₹10 and ₹20 in the 2024-25 fiscal. For states like Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Manipur, and Rajasthan, the increase in daily wages is only in the early teen figures.

According to an analysis of government data earlier this month, the annualised average wages under MGNREGA seem to have gone up by less than ₹60 in the five-year period between FY19 and FY24. An approximate estimation of the wage numbers indicate an annualised growth of below 5%, with average wages moving from about ₹208 in FY19 to ₹265 in FY24.

With the addition of the FY25 wages, the annualised growth between FY19 to FY25 has gone up slightly to 5.25%, with the annual average wages growing by ₹75 during this period.

The sources from where the data has been closely read are the government-notified annual NREGS wages and NREGS dashboard.

Gaps have also been witnessed between the daily average wage rates paid to MGNREGA workers and the government-notified annual wage rates.

However, the Centre’s allocation for MGNREGA has been substantial since FY20 with large payouts during the pandemic years when employment surged under the rural employment scheme. As per Budget documents, the central government paid ₹71,687 crore in FY20. In FY21, the MGNREGA budget surged to ₹1.12 lakh crore. ₹98,468 crore was paid in FY22, and ₹91,000 crore in FY23. These are the actual outgoes towards the scheme.