The State Government on Friday claimed that Odisha has become one among top 10 States in implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
“During current financial year till Feb 25, Odisha has come up to 8th position in utilization of funds under the MGNREGS from its 12th position in 2014-15,” Panchayati Raj Secretary Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh said at a meeting of the Odisha MGNREGS Society held under chairmanship of Chief Secretary AP Padhi at the Secretariat.
Odisha has gone ahead of the leading States like Karnataka, Kerala and Maharastra during the current year, he said.
Elated over the achievement, the Chief Secretary directed the department to bring more projects into the fold of convergence with MGNREGS. Various departments were asked to formulate appropriate project proposals and scale up their activities at the ground level.
It was revealed that a total of Rs 1,746 crore has been spent till February 25 under the scheme. In 2014-15, the spending was around Rs 1059 crore.
Singh expressed hope that the total utilization might touch Rs 2,000-croe mark by March 31, 2016. This year till February, around 6 crore man days have been created while the total man days of 5 crore had been created during 2014-15.
Around 16.93 lakh households have been provided employment during this period, which shows an achievement of 89%. Participation of women and ST and SC people in man days created has been 95% and 97%, respectively, he said.