Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Mahatma Gandhi NREGS) is a demand driven wage employment Scheme. The core objective of the Scheme is to provide not less than 100 days of unskilled manual work as a guaranteed employment in a financial year to every household in rural areas as per demand, resulting in creation of productive assets of prescribed quality and durability.
The details of households demanded employment and households offered employment under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS in last three financial years 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022 and current financial year 2022-23 (as on 31.07.2022) is given below:
| Financial Year | 2019-2020 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23(as on 31.07.22) |
| Households demanded employment (in crore) | 6.16 | 8.55 | 8.06 | 5.09 |
| Households offered employment (in crore) | 6.15 | 8.54 | 8.02 | 5.08 |
(as per NREGASoft)
As per Section 29 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mahatma Gandhi NREGA), Central Government may add new works in the permissible list of works under Schedule 1 of the Act. Adding new works under Schedule 1 of the Act is a regular exercise and new works are added on the basis of merit in alignment with focus and objectives of the Act.
As per Schedule 1 of Act, there are 265 permissible works under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA.
The demand from States to add work in the list of permissible works is examined in consultation with stakeholders. Also, the list of permissible works is reviewed annually by a Committee of Central Government having different States as member of the Committee.
Recently, plantation of Dragon-fruit under horticulture plantation has been permitted under the Scheme against the request from States keeping in view the local requirement and adherence of the provisions of the Act.
Some of recently added works in the list of permissible works under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA are given below:
(i) Construction of bio-gas plant for individual;
(ii) Unskilled wage component towards the construction of bio-gas plant for community;
(iii) Maintenance of tunnel constructed by Border Road Organisation (BRO); and
(iv) Maintenance of bridges constructed by Border Road Organisation (BRO)
This information was given by the Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply in Lok Sabha Today.
