Jobs provided through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation (MGNREG) scheme have bottomed out in Telangana, if the numbers between April and September this year are any indication.
The LibTech India report found a sharp decline of 47.6% in the number of person-days generated compared to the same period last year in the state. The contraction is remarkable, compared to a national decline of just 10.4%, the report said.
The number of unique households that worked under the program also fell drastically from 25.33 lakh last year to 19.94 lakh today, a 21.3% drop, reflecting lower participation. The average working day per household fell from 41 days to 27 days.
Medchal district saw the worst collapse with a 92.8% decline in person-days, followed by Jogulamba Gadwal (72.6%), Kamareddy (68.7%) and Nizamabad (67.1%).
The decline was significant during April and May, when they were the peak months for the employment guarantee. The number of person-days in April compared to the previous year fell from 427.1 to 244.45 in April and from 430.14 to 205.99 in May. This trend continued until September, with no remedial action.
On average, each household earned ₹1,686 less, representing a 19.4% drop in annual income. If the same number of person-days were provided as last year, households would earn about ₹3,500 more, the report said. This despite the announced increase in wages under MGNREG from ₹ 300 to ₹ 307 per day. The resulting state-level wage loss stands at ₹802.57 crore, which is nearly 63% of the national-level wage loss, which is pegged at ₹1,274.21 crore, according to the report.
Without citing any specific reason for the trend, the report nevertheless noted that the state saw a net deletion of 5,000 job cards during the six-month period. A total of 78,000 workers were removed from the active register, while 46,000 were added, resulting in a net removal of 32,000 workers.
“This pattern is significant as Telangana has already experienced large-scale deletions in the recent past. During the mandate of the Aadhaar-based Payment System (ABPS) in 2022-23, more than 5.1 million job cards were deleted in the state,” noted report authors Gayatri Saranya A. and Chakradhar Buddha.
Completion of Aadhaar deployment using job cards in Telangana stands at 48.5%, meaning about 50 million workers have completed the process, while about 53 million registered workers are yet to do so, the report noted, attributing the gap to migration and technical glitches such as device-level errors, application crashes and poor network connectivity.
Citing findings from the field, the report says there is a new perception among workers and civil society groups that the trend in Telangana, marked by a steep decline in person-days, has something to do with the Indiramma housing benefits, for which active MGNREGA work cards become automatically eligible.
“We have not investigated this association or proven causation, but the perception exists among workers and the timing, which overlaps with the ongoing contraction of job cards, warrants further investigation,” the report said, while calling on the state government to restore predictable work allocations across districts and initiate efforts to restore job cards to correct improper deletions.
From the central government, the report demanded removal of the mandatory Aadhaar requirement for access to work and wages, and consultation with civil society organizations to design inclusive digital processes.
Published – 03 Nov 2025 21:04 IST
