NREGA launched in all districts of country

New Delhi, Apr 1 (UNI) The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which has become pan-India with following implementation in the remaining 274 districts from today, has provided 100 days employment to only 10 per cent of the 3.08 crores households seeking jobs.

Launching the third and final phase of NREGA here, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told reporters that Rs 16,000 crore budgetary outlay has been made during 2008-9 for the NREGA, but the expected expenditure would be about Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore and as the scheme was demand driven there would be no constraint on resources. Moreover, the amount available for release under vote on account was Rs 4666.67 crore.

Till now 3.10 crore households have demanded employment under it of which 3.08 crore households have been provided. However, the number of households completing 100 days employment was only 10 per cent i.e Rs 31.26 lakh while the average persondays of employment provided to a family was 40 days per year. BJP ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh along with Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have provided more persondays work per year to households demanding jobs.

He said that 121.64 crore persondays employment has been given during the past two years since the programme was first launched.

Of these women have received 42 per cent or 51.24 crore persondays with 82 per cent in Tamil Nadu, 69 per cent in Rajasthan to 15.89 per cent in West Bengal and 14 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. The Scheduled Castes got 27.04 per cent employment while STs got 30 per cent employment.

He said that till now 15.61 lakh works have been taken up of which 4.96 lakh have been completed while 10.64 lakh are in progress.

The water conservation works were 48.44 per cent followied by rural connectivity 16.99 per cent and land development 16.78 per cent.

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