'19.61L labourers got jobs under MGNREGA'
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh has provided the maximum jobs to labourers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the country when the rage of Covid-19 has shaken the state.
According to the latest status of the portal of the Union Ministry for Rural Development, MP is at the top by providing employment to 19.61 Lakh labourers while Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Odisha are at the second, third and fourth places by engaging 13.95, 12.60 and 12.37 Lakh labourers respectively.
The state has been successively remaining at the first position in terms of engaging labourers since December last year. Altogether 527.93 Lakh man-days employment, the highest number in the country has been provided under MGNREGA by the state so far since 1 April even under adverse circumstances.
The works under the 'Catch the Water' (CTW) campaign and sustainable infrastructures are in progress in the 21,016 Panchayats out of 22810. Altogether 1116 Panchayats have been put in the red zone due to Covid-19, these are running various individual beneficiary-oriented works such as Kapil Dhara Koop, Farm-Pond, Land Reclamation, etc.
Despite the 'Corona Curfew' in the state, people in rural areas are getting direct job opportunities under MGNREGA. It was possible due to the MGNREGA's pre-planned strategy of engaging job cardholders before the second surge of the epidemic, an official said.
"Water is the backbone for any hamlet if we conserve it then it makes blessed-prosperous the villages. Ensuring the protocols of Covid-19, Panchayats are executing various water-conserving works on a large-scale even in the current inverse circumstances", Sufiyah Faruqui, the commissioner of MGNREGA told Millennium Post. "It is not only providing employment to the villagers now but will also curb their migration in future", She also said.
Faruqui says that the CTW campaign would give fruitful results after a few years when the villages would have an adequate quantity of water and lash with pure
vegetables so that villagers would be able to remove the malnutrition from their children and boost up the immunity of the people.
"We got this achievement due to a dedicated, energetic and solemn team of ours. We recently trained virtually 1000 engineers. Roof water harvesting is being done in every government buildings", she added.
