Fact-check policy

Last updated 25 August 2026

People act on what they read here. Someone may walk to a panchayat office and argue about a number they saw on this site, so a wrong figure can cost them money or a day's work. That is why this page exists, and why it is specific rather than reassuring.

Primary sources first

For rules and figures we rely on official sources: the government portals, Ministry of Rural Development notifications, and Press Information Bureau releases. Where a fact came from a primary government source rather than news coverage, that is the version we use, even when secondary sites are saying something different and easier to write.

We do not trust the search results

This subject has a large number of sites that copy each other. We have repeatedly found widely repeated figures that trace back to nothing, and figures that were simply out of date and being echoed between sites. A claim being everywhere is not evidence. If we cannot follow it back to an official source or several independent credible ones, it does not go on the page as fact.

Numbers carry a caveat

Wage rates and similar figures change, sometimes mid-year. We mark them as indicative, say which notification they come from, and tell you to confirm the live figure on nrega.dord.gov.in. Where a state has a different rate for scheduled or high-altitude areas, we say so rather than letting one state-wide number stand for everyone.

When we cannot confirm something, we say so

This is the rule we are strictest about, because it is the one most often broken elsewhere. If a rule, date or amount cannot be verified, we leave it out or state plainly that it is unconfirmed. We would rather a page say "ask your gram panchayat" than give you a confident number that turns out to be wrong.

We also refuse to do arithmetic that no source supports. For example, some households are entitled to extra days of work beyond the standard guarantee, and those rules were written when the guarantee was 100 days. The guarantee is now 125. Nothing published states how the two combine, so our guides do not add them up and tell you to confirm your own total with the panchayat instead.

Where a figure is missing, we do not substitute an old one

If a state was left out of a notification, we do not quietly fall back to the previous year's number. We say the current rate is not confirmed for that place and point you to the portal, because a stale figure presented as current is worse than no figure at all.

Corrections

We get things wrong. When we do, we fix the page, change its updated date, and where the error mattered we say what changed rather than editing quietly. You can report an error through the contact page, and you do not need to explain who you are or prove anything to do it.

See also our editorial policy for how guides are researched and written.