ANANTAPUR: Ensuring security to the lives of poor labourers in rural areas is the main objective of the National Rural Employment Assurance Act-2005, Joint Commissioner of Rural Development Kishan Das has said.

Speaking after inaugurating a two-day workshop on creating awareness about the Act in rural areas here on Thursday, he said the new Act was different from the National Food For Work and Employment Assurance Schemes taken up by the Government earlier.

Officials of the District Water Management Authority, Panchayat Raj, Agriculture, Horticulture, Forest, SC, ST, BC, Physically Handicapped, Women and Child Welfare departments participated in the workshop. The State Government had designed the State Rural Employment Assurance Scheme with better features than NFFW and EAS, he said.

Providing at least 100 days of unskilled work to all families who were in need of wage work, providing all necessary amenities at the work site and paying unemployment allowance on failure to provide wage work were the main features of the new Act, Mr. Das explained.

Works, which would help improve the basic amenities in rural areas, would be given preference under the new scheme, he stated.

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