It looks like cost of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the largest employment guarantee public works program in the world, is coming down. Its cost as a share of GDP, total expenditure and revenue receipts is decreasing and is expected to be 0.45 percent, 3.19 percent, and 5.08 percent respectively in fiscal year 2011-2012. Here is more on MGNREGA.
| NREGA budget (Rs Crore) | ||||||
| 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09** | 2009-10** | 2010-2011* | 2011-2012* | |
| GDP, current prices# | 4,293,672 | 4,986,426 | 5,582,623 | 6,550,271 | 7,877,947 | 8,980,860 |
| Total expenditure | 583,387 | 712,671 | 900,953 | 1,020,838 | 1,108,749 | 1,257,729 |
| Revenue receipts | 434,387 | 541,864 | 562,173 | 614,497 | 682212 | 789892 |
| NREGA allocated budget | 11,300 | 12,000 | 30,000 | 39,100 | 40,100 | 40,100 |
| NREGA/GDP | 0.26 | 0.24 | 0.54 | 0.60 | 0.51 | 0.45 |
| NREGA/Exp | 1.94 | 1.68 | 3.33 | 3.83 | 3.62 | 3.19 |
| NREGA/Rev | 2.60 | 2.21 | 5.34 | 6.36 | 5.88 | 5.08 |
Source: Union Budgets; The main reason for the expected decline is that GDP, expenditure and revenue are estimated to increase but the budget allocation for MGNREGA is kept the same as during the previous fiscal year. In FY 2010-2011, 5.49 crore households were provided employment (100 days employment on demand to each household during lean season). The total persondays of employment created was 257.15 persondays (crore). Of this, the share of SCs, STs, and women accounted for 30.63%, 20.85%, and 47.73% respectively.*estimate; **revised estimate'; # Economic Survey 2010-11 
