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Bengal

Daily wage of MGNREGA workers increased to Rs 180, says Subrata

The daily wage of workers engaged in 100-days work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme has been increased to Rs 180 from Rs 176, Subrata Mukherjee, minister for Panchayat and Rural Development said on Thursday.

Talking to newsmen in Nabanna after garlanding the portrait of Bhagat Singh, Mukherjee alleged that while foreign funding agencies had shown keen interest to fund projects taken up by the department in West Bengal, the Centre was not cooperating. It may be recalled that in Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojna, the Centre has reduced its share of financial support and also the maintenance of rural roads is now responsibility of the state government.

Thus, the state government has to keep money for maintenance of rural roads in addition to setting up new ones. He said that the Panchayat and Rural Development department had constructed 12,000 km rural road between 2011-16. Construction of rural roads is on in full swing and the state government had sent DPR for 400 km and 800 km roads to the Centre for approval.

It may be recalled that after coming to power in 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had stressed the need to construct rural roads and provide drinking water to every rural household, besides setting up toilets in rural homes.

The Left Front government took a decade to construct 10,000 km rural roads. The Public Health Engineering (PHE) department has taken up schemes worth Rs 8000 crore to provide drinking water in rural households.

The department has sought money worth Rs 10,000 from the Centre to provide piped water in arsenic and fluoride affected areas. Six DPRs worth Rs 3027 crore have been submitted and Centre is likely to clear it soon. Mukherjee said Fluoride had been found in Birbhum and the department with UNICEF are working on it.

The department has already taken steps to provide arsenic-free water in the districts which include Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Birbhum and Hooghly.

Mukherjee said skilled development programmes would start in six districts soon with the funds that would be made available by the World Bank. The World Bank will provide Rs 2,000 crore to upgrade training and infrastructure development in 3,345 gram panchayats. The best gram panchayats will be rewarded and will be given additional money to develop their infrastructure.
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