The Centre has notified new wage rates for unskilled manual workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, for financial year 2023-24, with Rajasthan seeing maximum hike of 10.39 per cent over the current wage rate, and Goa recording the lowest — 2.2 per cent. A notification to this effect has been issued by the Ministry of Rural Development. The wage rates, notified by the Ministry of Rural Development under sub-section (1) of Section 6 of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, will become effective from April 1. As per the notification, the highest rate of NREGS wage — Rs 357 per day — has been fixed for Haryana, while the lowest — Rs 221 per day — has been fixed for Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. However, the highest increase has been recorded by Rajasthan, where NREGS wage rate has increased by 10.39 per cent to Rs 255 per day for 2023-24 — up from Rs 231 in 2022-23. The state is followed by Bihar and Jharkhand, which have registered an increase of 8.57 per cent. The lowest hike in NREGS wages has been recorded by Goa, where the rate has increased by 2.22 per cent — from Rs 315 in 2022-23 to Rs 322 per day for 2023-24. The state is followed by Karnataka, where the NREGS wage rate has registered a hike of 2.27 per cent — from Rs 309 in 2022-23 to Rs 316 for 2023-24. Seven other states have recorded less than 5 per cent hike in wage rates for 2023-24 over the current (2022-23) rates: Meghalaya (3.4 per cent), Manipur (3.59 per cent), Arunachal Pradesh (3.7 per cent), Nagaland (3.7 per cent), Assam (3.93 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.63 per cent), and Puducherry (4.63 per cent.
