The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Efforts on to achieve NREGS target

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 29, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Efforts on to achieve NREGS target

Staff Reporter

Some 75,000 households to be provided job by year-end

Scheme is implemented in 57 mandals in district
Total outlay for this year is fixed at
Rs. 95.26 crores

GUNTUR: The district is racing against time to achieve the target of providing 100 days of wage employment to 75,000 households under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) by the end of 2008.

Only 40 households have been provided 100 days of wage employment since April and 798 since the scheme’s inception. NREGS officials are exuding confidence that the number of beneficiaries would go up significantly in the coming months.

The NREGS is implemented in 57 mandals in the district.

Under it, 33.17 lakh works were taken up with a total expenditure of Rs. 42.03 crores. The total outlay for the year is fixed at Rs. 95.26 crores.

Priority works

Priority has been given to digging of minor irrigation tanks, called as Indiramma tanks, with each tank dug up to stabilise 100 acres of irrigated land. The target for the year 2008-2009 is to stabilise 13,900 acres by digging up 139 tanks. Laying of CC roads with 50 per cent contribution from MPLAD grants, development of assigned lands and horticultural convergence were the other priorities.

With the agricultural off-season coming to an end by mid-June, a number of measures have been put in place to draw the households into the scheme.

‘Matching & batching’ is one such measure. Under the programme, a group of 40 labourers would be attached to a ‘mestri’, who would then entrust the works to the workers.

“This scheme ensures mass employment opportunity to households and helps them stay together. Implementation of such schemes takes some time in a predominantly agricultural district,” NREGS Project Director Sk. Salam said on Saturday.

Wages disbursement

The NREGS team will also extend the highly successful model of involving self-help groups in disbursement of weekly wages to all other mandals in the district in a phased manner.

The women SHGs have been roped in to disburse the wages every Friday to avoid delay in payment through post office savings accounts. A pilot project was implemented in Veldurthy, Piduguralla, Vinukonda, Rajupalam and Macherla mandals, where the SHGs disbursed Rs. 1.16 crores to 15,543 households till March 2008.

The SHGs, in turn, got Rs.2.33 lakhs in lieu of 2 per cent service cess.

“We have found that SHGs played a pivotal role in mobilising more number of households.

By ensuring weekly payments, labourers have turned up in large numbers,” Mr. Salam added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh