**Executive Summary**
This document contains the answer from the Minister of Rural Development to Starred Question No. 235 in Lok Sabha, answered on December 16, 2025, regarding worker participation under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). It addresses concerns about declining worker participation, details of reviews conducted, and provides state/UT-wise data on worker employment for the last seven financial years and the current year (2025-26, as of December 11, 2025). The statement is laid on the Table of the House, as per the response.
**Key Points / Main Content**
* **MGNREGS Guarantee:**
* Guarantees up to 100 days of wage employment per financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
* Function as a fallback option when better employment is unavailable.
* **Implementation and Review:**
* Implementation responsibility lies with the respective State/UT Governments.
* The Ministry regularly reviews implementation to ensure adherence to the Act and timely employment as per demand.
* For FY 2025-26 (as of December 11, 2025), 99.70% of rural households demanding work have been offered employment.
* Variations in employment across States/UTs depend on demand for work and employment availed by workers.
* Any difference between demand and availed work may be due to better employment opportunities, illness, or other relevant factors including monsoon season.
* **Awareness and Participation:**
* States/UTs conduct Information Education and Communication (IEC) campaigns to generate awareness about the Scheme.
* Measures include wall paintings for wide dissemination, expanding demand registration, participatory planning, and organizing "Rozgar Diwas".
* **Monitoring:**
* The Ministry regularly reviews implementation, including worker participation trends, through fora such as Mid-Term Review, Labour Budget meetings, Labour Budget Revision meetings, and Programme Review meetings.
* **Data Provision:**
* State/UT-wise details of workers provided employment under MGNREGS during the last seven financial years and the current financial year 2025-26 (as on December 11, 2025) are provided in an annexure.
**Impact Analysis**
**Stakeholder: Central Government (Ministry of Rural Development)**
* **Impact:** The Ministry is responsible for overseeing the implementation of MGNREGS and ensuring adherence to its provisions.
* **Action Required:** Continue to monitor implementation, review worker participation trends, and provide support to States/UTs as needed.
**Stakeholder: State/UT Governments**
* **Impact:** Responsible for implementing MGNREGS at the ground level and ensuring that eligible rural households have access to employment opportunities.
* **Action Required:** Conduct IEC campaigns to raise awareness about the scheme, ensure that demand for work is properly registered, prepare plans in a participatory mode, and organize "Rozgar Diwas".
**Stakeholder: Rural Households**
* **Impact:** Can avail up to 100 days of guaranteed wage employment under MGNREGS.
* **Action Required:** Demand work under MGNREGS, participate in planning processes, and utilize employment opportunities when available.
Key Entities Referenced
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS): A scheme guaranteeing wage employment in rural areas.
Ministry of Rural Development: The government ministry responsible for the MGNREGS program.
Lok Sabha: Indian Parliament where the starred question regarding MGNREGS worker participation was raised.
Kerala: One of the states mentioned where declining worker participation in MGNREGS is questioned.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
LOK SABHA
STARRED QUESTION NO. 235
ANSWERED ON 16/12/2025
WORKER PARTICIPATION UNDER MGNREGS
*235. Adv. Adoor Prakash:
Will the Minister of RURAL DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:
(a) whether the Government is aware of the decline in worker
participation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in many States including Kerala,
State-wise;
(b) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;
(c) whether the Government has conducted any review of declining
worker participation under MGNREGS, if so, the details thereof;
and
(d) the details of worker participation under MGNREGS during the
last seven years and the current year, State-wise?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI SHIVRAJ SINGH CHOUHAN)
(a) to (d): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
Page 1 of 3STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) to (d) OF LOK SABHA
STARRED QUESTION NO. *235 TO BE ANSWERED ON 16.12.2025
REGARDING “WORKER PARTICIPATION UNDER MGNREGS”
(a) to (d): Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme (Mahatma Gandhi NREGS) guarantees up to one hundred days
of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every
household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Here it is also stated that it is a fall back option when no better
employment opportunity is available. Since responsibility for
implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS at ground level lies with the
respective State/UT Governments, the Ministry regularly reviews the
implementation with State/UT in order to ensure adherence to the
provisions of the Act and providing timely employment as per demand.
In FY 2025-26 (as on 11.12.2025), 99.70% of rural households demanding
work have been offered employment.
Any variations, including increase/decrease in the employment
provided across States/UTs, including Kerala, depends on the demand
for work made by eligible rural households and employment availed by
the workers against the employment offered. While the work demanded
closely matches with the work offered, the difference of work availed
with the former is on account of lack of utilisation of such offering by
workers. This could be on account of better employment opportunities
elsewhere, illness or any other relevant factor. Further, owing to better
employment opportunities elsewhere or good monsoon season demand
for employment keep varying from year to year basis under the scheme.
In order to generate awareness about the provisions of the
Scheme and to provide adequate employment opportunities to rural
households under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS, all States/UTs carry out
appropriate Information Education and Communication (IEC) campaigns
including wall paintings for wide dissemination of the provisions of the
Act, expand scope and coverage of demand registration system to
ensure that demand for work under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA does not
go unregistered, prepare plans in a participatory mode and approve them
in the Gram Sabha and ensure Organization of ‘Rozgar Diwas’.
The Ministry regularly reviews the implementation of the Mahatma
Gandhi NREGS, including trends in worker participation through various
fora viz., Mid-Term Review, Labour Budget meetings, Labour Budget
Revision meetings, Programme Review meetings.
State/Union Territory (UT)-wise details of workers provided
employment under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS during the last seven
financial years and the current financial year 2025-26 (as on 11.12.2025)
is given at Annexure.
*****
Page 2 of 3Annexure
Annexure referred in reply to parts (a) to (d) of Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 235
dated 16.12.2025.
State/Union Territory (UT)-wise details of workers provided employment under Mahatma Gandhi
NREGS during the last seven financial years and the current financial year 2025-26 (as on
11.12.2025).
SI. Workers provided employment
No State/UTs
2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26
.
Andhra
1 6909542 6500099 7952471 7737145 7599041 7542774 7523192 6437654
Pradesh
Arunachal
2 169235 182670 243521 278558 287823 282304 311416 312296
Pradesh
3 Assam 2458226 2770697 3571816 3987152 3429176 3347046 2635656 1741219
4 Bihar 3360577 3832298 5814920 5411860 5775151 5383600 5622579 5003773
5 Chhattisgarh 4568868 4544184 6017874 5506469 4719032 4414138 4483974 2691215
6 Goa 1161 1751 4365 3478 3862 2186 3192 2326
7 Gujarat 1516947 1326194 1931861 1843874 1630751 1511621 1306277 900961
8 Haryana 326861 364019 651129 569854 440703 524003 478818 355310
Himachal
9 736077 716133 891622 995654 880712 949218 1026193 635097
Pradesh
Jammu and
10 981253 920942 1127905 1085127 989074 993446 1055750 770496
Kashmir
11 Jharkhand 1623143 1762509 3204487 3099049 2497483 2559494 2311373 2299269
12 Karnataka 3934472 4108973 5668569 6361291 5315915 5402381 5172297 3631775
13 Kerala 1708184 1654129 1882654 1898995 1758623 1661622 1540284 1310876
14 Ladakh 0 37035 38058 37457 39176 36516 37175 34838
Madhya
15 6672026 6166051 10530733 9568909 7550368 6373186 5772978 5218046
Pradesh
16 Maharashtra 3275525 2745962 3109789 3688009 3706159 4128113 5112002 5133912
17 Manipur 570353 590185 604230 593711 374635 503268 565784 513700
18 Meghalaya 679527 715056 752426 731124 645192 629087 544506 459578
19 Mizoram 199965 208131 222695 213601 218722 211413 211355 216948
20 Nagaland 416321 425990 418825 463815 491446 468211 216384 271253
21 Odisha 3366339 3731602 6214748 5553162 5174500 4991241 3376769 2938674
22 Punjab 824278 908128 1184204 1072149 1018291 1015694 984903 850136
23 Rajasthan 7537391 8051944 11097642 10085964 8807151 8696618 7723342 5206718
24 Sikkim 72178 67515 76985 74550 71020 70327 68677 58880
25 Tamil Nadu 6524708 6488785 7852828 7995928 7579248 7939116 7433984 5739793
26 Telangana 4252199 4074689 5428833 4878034 4544958 4062113 4244192 3045572
27 Tripura 739389 784279 833409 852746 819752 843062 813537 720468
Uttar
28 6148180 6450465 11603211 9543735 8367851 8128130 7583469 5528099
Pradesh
29 Uttarakhand 637929 660783 909281 792067 681227 638095 575358 308756
30 West Bengal 7425666 7968168 11826053 11121629 2020079 9415 0 0
Andaman
31 7080 6924 9532 5715 5387 5025 3523 1508
and Nicobar
Dadra and
Nagar Haveli
32 0 0 0 0 0 2188 10496 6294
and Daman
and Diu
Lakshadwee
33 259 124 75 24 101 77 0 0
p
34 Puducherry 35931 43092 53406 41030 45511 58705 50264 50034
7767979 7880950 11173015 10609186 8748812 8338343 7879969 6239547
Total
0 6 7 5 0 3 9 4
(As per NREGASoft)
*****
Page 3 of 3