Employment through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREG) scheme has registered increase by almost a third in the Telangana State so far in the current year.
Since April up to October this year, the employment provided has seen a jump of 32.35 % when compared with the same period of the financial year 2019-20, a study by Libtech India has revealed.
The organisation which has been documenting implementation of the employment guarantee scheme in both the Telugu speaking States, observed that employment provided in the Telangana State amounted to 12.71 crore person days during the study period, which is the highest in the last three years. In 2019-20, the days were 9.6 crore, while in 2018-19, they stood at 10.41 crore.
The State has 1.12 crore of registered individuals for the scheme from 52.3 lakh households, of which 5.84 lakh individuals from 2.68 lakh households have been registered in 2020-21.
Of these, 16.55 % belonged to Scheduled Castes while 13.98 % belonged to Scheduled Tribes. A total of 58.4 % employment provided was utilised by women workers in the current year.
Twenty eight districts provided higher employment this year compared to the previous year for the same study period. Mahabubabad, Jangaon, Mancherial and Peddapalli are the only districts with lower employment ratio vis-a-vis last year.
During the pandemic year, labourers in the peri urban areas such as Rangareddy, Sangareddy, Medak, Medchal, and Vikarabad have utilised the scheme better than last year, owing to lack of work in the city due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the study observed.
A total of 270 mandals have shown better employment ratio when compared with last year, and the top 10 such mandals have clocked anywhere between 239 and 1271 % increase in the person days when compared with the same period in 2019-20.
More than 1.6 lakh households could already finish their 100 days of work during the first six months this year, against the 1.77 lakh in whole of the previous financial year, the study said.
