Can MGNREGA, farming sustain recent bump in rural employment post-lockdown?

While rural India has shown a faster drop in unemployment rates than urban after the lockdown, experts say there is limit to which agriculture and MGNREGA can absorb labour

India’s rural sector is showing definite signs of revival after the lockdown, with all major parameters, such as fertiliser sales, tractor sales, the pace of sowing and job generation showing signs of improvement.

While rural wages are missing from this matrix, it will be interesting to see what impact the lockdown had on them. However, that will still take time, as updated data is yet to come.

A big turnaround has been in the unemployment numbers driven largely by an improvement in rural job generation after the lockdown.

Data sourced from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows that overall