Banarpal: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), launched by the union government to provide assured employment to unskilled workers, is yet to take strong roots in Banarpal block of Angul district, government data suggests. Launched in Angul district back in 2007, the scheme is yet to generate targeted employment opportunity for the registered locals here.
According to a survey, there are 34,311 BPL families living in 35 panchayats of Banarpal block out of which 19,055 people have been provided with registered job cards as unskilled labourers. However, only 1,178 registered men and women continue to work under the scheme.
While the registered workers are supposed to get a minimum of 100 days of work each year, they have collectively worked 15,921 days so far – which is less than 14 days of work each even for the people who get work under this scheme.
These figures represent how this scheme is being implemented in this block. Worse, a large number of projects taken up under this scheme are lying unfinished half way through.
According to official data, out of 365 projects taken up in 2019-20, work on 243 projects are still going on. A source in the concerned department said 131 projects are lying half-built. Similarly, out of 1,494 projects taken up last year, only 1,021 projects were completed while a whopping 473 ones are still lying incomplete.
For the successful implementation of the scheme, each panchayat should have had a ‘gram rojgar sevak’ (GRS). But only 15 panchayats out of 35 ones have GRSs. Moreover, there is a want of executive officers to implement the schemes.
When contacted, block assistant programme officer Devi Kar admitted that implementation of MGNREGS is not satisfactory in the block. “There are a number of plants including one of NALCO under Banarpal block. Nearby villagers prefer working in these plants over working under MGNREGS. This is the reason why we have a labourer shortage here leading to missed MGNREGA targets,” he said trying to reason the delayed execution of the projects.