₹9,300 crore in limbo: MGNREGS dues pile up as rural workers wait

Pending liabilities to states under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS ) stood at ₹9,308.67 crore as of February 9, 2026, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday, with Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka topping the chart of outstanding amounts.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Rural Development Kamlesh Paswan tabled state-wise data showing Uttar Pradesh leading with ₹1,158.71 crore in pending dues, the highest among all states, followed by Andhra Pradesh (₹1,014.60 crore), Karnataka (₹746.65 crore), Tamil Nadu (₹729.88 crore) and Madhya Pradesh (₹704.64 crore). Bihar, Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand and Rajasthan also featured significantly, together with the top five accounting for roughly ₹7,228 crore , about 78 per cent of the total. The remaining ~₹2,080 crore is spread across smaller states and Union Territories not individually named in the reply, leaving the state with the lowest pending dues unidentifiable from the data tabled.

These pending liabilities refer to reimbursements owed by the Centre to states , which front the cost of wages and materials before seeking Central repayment, not wages directly withheld from workers. However, prolonged delays in reimbursement can strain state finances and indirectly slow wage disbursements at the ground level.

The Centre maintained that MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme , with wages credited directly into beneficiaries' accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer protocol and fund releases made in tranches based on labour budgets, utilisation rates and documentation submitted by states. While ₹78,004.59 crore had already been released to states this financial year, the ₹9,308 crore still pending reflects the lag between states spending ahead of Central reimbursement cycles, a structural feature of how the scheme operates rather than an outright default.

The government stated that all admissible liabilities up to FY 2024-25 had been cleared, notably excepting West Bengal , where dues have remained frozen over the state's failure to submit utilisation certificates and comply with mandatory social audits, conditions the Centre says must be met before further reimbursements can be released. No specific figure was disclosed in the reply.

The government further noted that 99.81 per cent of eligible rural households seeking work had been employed in FY 2025-26. However, the reply offered no year-on-year comparison , leaving unanswered whether the pending liabilities are improving or worsening, context critical to assessing the health of a scheme that remains the last line of economic defence for millions of rural Indians.