Hyderabad, August 07: Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday said that in order to widen the scope of the MGNREGS, the involvement of unskilled labour has to be increased in certain areas.
The Chief Minister, in a statement released by his office, said that issues like unskilled labour charges in housing activities under the rural housing programme, clearing of debris and cleaning of the village drains under the village sanitation programme, vegetable cultivation and sericulture programmes in SC/ST lands and unskilled wages in construction of Biogas plants and providing 150 days wage employment to vulnerable sections of the population such as the SC/ST households were the key issues which were taken up with Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh during his visit to Hyderabad on Saturday.
Comprehensive land development of lands of poor, including land inventory of SC and STs, formation of labour groups and preparation of work employment plan and all wage payments to be made through biometric authentications are some of the other features.
Referring to some of the unique features of MGNREGS in the state the Chief Minister said that the use of IT for logistics such as electronic fund management, electronic muster and measurement have yielded results. A project mode planning approach has been evolved.
The Chief Minister felt that one of the major reason for the tremendous success of the scheme in Andhra Pradesh is due to Social audit being conducted through a well organized network of NGOs. A 24×7 call centre has been operationalised so as to enable the people to register complaints.
Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy said that Andhra Pradesh has been in the forefront in the successful implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme.
He said that under the programme a record number of 1.22 crore job cards have been issued in 22 districts of the state covering 1098 mandals. 183 lakh individuals in 91,33,801 households have been provided wage employment in 69002 habitations of 21860 grampanchayats, he added.
Total expenditure incurred so far includes Rs 16,585 crores of which total wage expenditure is Rs 12,414 crores while the material component amounts to Rs 3,363 crores. 16,12,494 works have been completed so far.(INN)