'Engage only MGNREGS job card holders for execution of schemes'

kolkata: Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi issued a circular, urging all departments to engage only unskilled labourers having MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) job cards, for execution of their various schemes.

Seven months have elapsed in the current fiscal, but the Centre has not disbursed a single penny in connection with MGNREGS for Bengal. State Panchayats and Rural Development minister Pradip Majumdar is likely to meet Union minister of Panchayat, Raj Giriraj Singh in New Delhi on Monday. Dwivedi had held a meeting with concerned Secretaries of 15 departments on Thursday and asked them to take measures for the engagement of more MGNREGS job card holders in different government work in the backdrop of Centre's deprivation, when it comes to paying of wages under the scheme. The state government considers that the engagement of 100 days workers by the executing departments has not been satisfactory and there is scope to deploy more job card holders. The Chief Secretary has directed the administration to issue job cards to unskilled workers, who are engaged in the work but does not possess one.

Each department has been asked to designate one nodal officer for supervising the engagement and data entry of labourers on the portal wbdeptemployment.in. The District Magistrates, who attended Thursday's meeting virtually, have been directed to co-ordinate with all concerned departments for engaging job card holders and timely portal entry.

Till date, 15 departments have engaged about 28.44 lakh job card holders with mandays generated to the tune of 5.18 crore and wages worth Rs 1147.05 crore have been paid. As per Nabanna sources, there are presently 1.08 crore job card holders in the state. The engagement of 100 days workers in different works started from May after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the administration to take measures for engaging more job card holders in government projects so that they do not suffer because of deprivation of their wages by the Centre.

The departments that have engaged job card holders are namely – Panchayats and Rural Development, School Education, Irrigation, North Bengal Development, Public Works, Public Health Engineering, Water Resources Investigation, Forest, Fisheries, Agriculture, Women and Child Development, Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education, Backward Classes Welfare, Urban Development and Municipal Affairs and Paschimanchal Unnayan. Among the districts, South 24-Parganas has engaged 2.95 lakh job card holders and paid wages of Rs 146.82 crore.

Murshidabad had engaged 3.59 lakh and paid Rs 134.28 crore. East Midnapore has also paid Rs 103.45 crore by engaging 2.05 lakh

card holders.