Early in his tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the MGNREGA a “testimony” of the failures of the previous United Progressive Alliance government.

       The rural employment scheme’s nature and the objective had come in for strong criticism and plans were afoot to change its characteristics, according to civil society activists.

       Arun Jaitley, in his first Budget for the Modi government as Finance Minister, allocated Rs 34,699 crore to the scheme for 2015-16 and thereafter topped it up with Rs 7,000 crore through supplementary demand, making it the highest ever allocation for any year (Jaitley died in 2019 at age 66).

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