Less than half the rural households that demanded work in the last 45 days were offered work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), data on the Ministry of Rural Development website show.

Data updated as on May 15 show that 2.48 crore rural households across India had demanded work in the last 45 days and just 46 per cent of these were addressed. From these households, 3.55 crore adults had demanded work and 45 per cent of them were provided with some employment.

How the big States fared

Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka were among the larger States that performed better than the national average at providing households with employment that they took up. A quick analysis of the MGNREGS data shows that 72 per cent of the households that sought work in Chhattisgarh, 61 per cent in Odisha, 59 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, 52 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and 51 per cent in Karnataka were provided employment.

The corresponding figures for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the States with the largest rural population, were 45 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively.

The laggards

States such as Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, the best performers on social development indicators, were also found lagging. In Kerala, only 29 per cent of the households demanding work were provided employment, and the corresponding numbers for Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh were 22 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.

At the all-India level, 13.75 crore households hold MGNREGS job cards and, so far, just 18 per cent have demanded work, with wide variations across States. For instance, just about 9 per cent of job cardholders in Bihar have demanded work so far, about 20 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, about 7 per cent in Maharashtra and 8 per cent in Kerala.

Demand from job card holders

Demand for work from job card holders was most robust in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, where 60 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively, sought work. In Rajasthan, too, demand was fairly high, at 29 per cent. Data on households and individuals demanding and provided work in Telangana have not been provided on the portal.

The MGNREGS data also show that over 42 per cent of the households demanding work were from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is also seen that 46 per cent of all the jobs provided in this period went to households in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.

Even in terms of person-days of work provided, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh stood out. A total of 14.81 crore person-days of work had been provided work as on May 15, of which Andhra Pradesh accounted for 20 per cent and Chhattisgarh, 18 per cent.

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