NREGA goes on to benefit Northeast people

Imphal, Nov 5: The North East states have been greatly benefited by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme, official sources said here today.

Total fund available under the scheme for Arunachal Pradesh is Rs 273.25 lakh, Assam Rs 55078.74 lakh, Meghalaya Rs 2064.68 lakh, Manipur Rs 1250.92 lakh, Mizoram Rs 944.60 lakh, Nagaland Rs 1485.05 lakh, Sikkim Rs 510.07 lakh and Tripura Rs 4282.00 lakh.

Under the scheme 57 works were undertaken in Arunachal Pradesh, 4065 in Assam, 118 in Nagaland 104 in Sikkim and 1399 in Tripura.

State government officials said the NREGA aims at securing livelihood to the people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of employment in a financial year.

Under the scheme, every registrant eligible for job is given a job card, which entitles him or her to ask for work.

If the person is not provided with employment within 15 days, then the peron would get daily unemployment allowance in cash.

The scheme had provided employment to 45,172 persons in NE states, Manipur Information Centre officials said.

As on October 23 this year, 60,636 persons were registered for employment under NREGA and 17,880 job cards were issued.

Water conservation, drought proofing, plantation, Rural connectivity were the main fields where the people are employed the most.

UNI