The Andhra Pradesh government has claimed that it has ranked fourth in the country in the implementation of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
A statement from the ministry of rural development indicated on Monday that as against the target of 25.25 crore person days allotted by the Centre, the state had created employment for 25.42 crore person days as on March 29, which was 100.67 per cent achievement.
“This is the fourth best achievement in the country and the third best in South India. Chhattisgarh ranks at the top, Tamil Nadu is in second position and Kerala in the third position. While Chhattisgarh achieved 105.27 per cent in creation of employment in terms of person days, Tamil Nadu achieved 102.40 per cent and Kerala 101.46 per cent,” an official in the department of rural development familiar with the development said.
State minister for panchayati raj and rural development Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy said Andhra Pradesh was aiming at crossing the milestone of 26 crore person days by March 31.
“The entire credit for this achievement goes to chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy who has given strict instructions to the official machinery to see that every eligible person in rural areas get work under MGNREGA. He has directed that there should be no case of migration from the state to other areas in search of employment,” the minister said.
The minister said during 2020-21, the government had spent ₹10,170 crore under MGNREGA, including ₹5,818 crore towards wage component and ₹3,965 crore towards material component.
He said during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Andhra government had taken up work under MGNREGA on a large-scale to provide employment to migrant labourers who had returned from other states.
“At the same time, it was a challenge to provide employment to local labourers who were deprived of any work during the lockdown. While 6.35 lakh labourers who had returned from other states were provided with new job cards, another 7.36 lakh job cards for local labourers were re-activated, besides issuance of fresh job cards for another 2.44 lakh people,” he said.
The workers were provided employment by taking sufficient care in maintaining social distance and using sanitisers during the work. “On June 9 last year, a record number of 54 lakh people were provided wage employment on a single day,” the minister said.
Reddy said this year, the state government had linked the MGNREGA work with various other schemes such as construction of Rythu Bharosa Centres, YSR Help Clinics, Anganwadi Centres and Bulk Milk Cooling units etc. In all, 48,969 works had been taken up at a cost of ₹9,871 crore and the material component of these would be linked to the MGNREGA, he said.
“Similarly, rural infrastructure work like laying of cement roads and drainage work, besides development of greenery would also be taken up under MGNREGA programmes,” the minister added.
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