Battling odds the State Government has spent Rs 900 crore out of a total allotment of Rs 930 crore meant for MGNREGA in Jharkhand. While talking to mediapersons at his residence in Ranchi on Tuesday, Rural Development Minister Neelkanth Singh Munda announced that the department was also very close to achieving the target of digging 1.5 lakh Dova across the state.
“Out of a total of Rs 930 crore allotted by the centre for MGNREGA so far, Rs 900 crore has already been spent under the head by the State Government while the rest of the amount will be spent soon as still there are ample time left with us,” said MGNREGA Commissioner Siddharth Tripathy. Over 1700 MGNREGA mates have also been involved to carry out the works under the scheme, added Tripathy.
In addition to that Rs 300 crore has been put into it from revolutionary fund which will be spent in the next three months. “We have also written to the Center for the rest of the amount under the head against which they have committed to provide us a part of it,” said Tripathy.
The MGNREGA Commissioner said that they were way ahead of their target this year as earlier as much less amount used to be spent till last year. “This is the best performance by us till date as so many schemes never were carried out at a time in this state,” said Tripathy.
Tripathy further said that his department was also close to achieving the target of digging 1.25 lakh Dova across the state as more than one lakh of them have already been dug.
The Rural Development Minister, on the other hand, added that a network of over 2100 km of roads will be constructed in the rural areas involving Rs 600 crore across the state under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana.
“638 projects across the state are being carried out across the state under the scheme for which we are also taking help of Indian Railway Construction Company limited,” said Munda. Warning the officials of his department, the Minister said that negligence of work will not be tolerated in any case and officials found to be negligent towards their work, will be dealt accordingly. “Action will be taken against the officials who will found to be negligent towards their work,” the minister said.