A joint secretary in union rural development ministry R Subramanim has conceded there is a fall in Man-days (read employment work days) in MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee) schemes in Jharkhand in the past 2 years and this is the cause of disinclination of labourers towards the scheme.
DC Palamu Manoj Kumar admitted the official spoke this about Jharkhand in terms of Mandays under MGNREGA. Subramaniam was in Palamu on Wednesday inspecting wells dug up under MGNREGA. He was shown wells built under Satbarwa block and under Chainpur block. The visiting union government official was satisfied with the wells built. DDC Palamu M Das accompanied him at Satbarwa and DC Palamu Manoj Kumar was with him in Chainpur.
However Subramaniam gave an impression here that wells under MGNREG kept the officials more occupied and obsessed here whereas there is a fair scope of divergence of MGNREG schemes like plantation and nursery. Subramaniam alluded to Muzaffarpur where MGNREG has been hooked to nursery and plantation also there yielding rich dividends. The official also reached a MGNREG work site and took stock of the MGNREG labourers. He was told of delayed wages and low wages.
DC Palamu Manoj Kumar while speaking to The Pioneer said Subramaniam spent considerable time here in these two blocks and saw the ground realities for himself. Kumar added Subramanaim’s thrust was on shelves of projects for MGNREG so that at no point of time a panchayat goes dry for want of schemes. Kumar explained this that one MGNREG scheme be in running stage while one scheme be kept as standby so once the first one gets completed this standby scheme be launched.
Subramaniam has given a go ahead for building a fleet of bare footed engineers for MGNREG schemes. He told DC that a crash course would be done for bare footed engineers and a syllabus for it is ready almost. MGNREG scheme mates too can be upgraded to become bare footed engineers. DC Palamu conceded that shortage of engineers tell upon the quality of MGNREG schemes as its supervision, monitoring and quality control get languishing for want of engineers but with the bare footed engineers these shortcomings can be overcome easily.