Staff Reporter
Guwahati: Assam has witnessed a gradual decline in the generation of “person-days” under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) since financial year 2021-22. This has emerged as a cause of concern for the state, as, in the MGNREGA, “person-days” refers to the total days of guaranteed unskilled work provided to rural households which have job cards, and a decline means that such households are being provided a lesser number of working days.
Recently, the central government passed a bill renaming MGNREGA as Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB–G RAM G Act, 2025. The renamed Act guarantees 125 days of wage employment per rural household in each financial year to such rural households whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work, contributing to income security beyond the earlier 100-day entitlement, with an aggregated 60-day no-work period to ensure the availability of agricultural labour during peak sowing and harvesting season.
According to available information, in the financial year 2021-22, a total of 9.15 crore person-days were generated in Assam under MGNREGA. In the next financial year (FY) of 2022-23, this figure came down to 7.86 crore. A slight improvement was witnessed in FY 2023-24, with 8.73 core person days generated. However, in the last FY of 2024-25 and the current FY of 2025-26, a continuous decline is seen, with person days of 7.10 crore and 3.83 crore (as of December 4, 2025), respectively.
The current number of 3.83 crore person days generated in FY 2025-26, until December 4, is a far cry from 9.15 crore person days generated in FY 2021-22, reflecting the sharp decrease in providing livelihood to rural households with MGNREGA job cards in Assam. There are presently 36.13 lakh active job cards in the state. MGNREGS is a demand-driven wage employment scheme, and it is implemented in Assam by the local panchayats under the direction of the Commissionerate of Panchayat and Rural Development. Currently, the state Minister for Panchayat and Rural Development is Ranjeet Kumar Dass.
Minister Dass and the officials of the Panchayat and Rural Development department have to dive deeply into the issue affecting rural livelihoods in the state. Otherwise, the aims and objectives of the scheme will not be properly implemented by the department.
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