59,000 get employment under NREGS in HP

Shimla, Apr 25 (UNI) Over 59,000 households in Sirmaur and Chamba districts of Himachal Pradesh have been provided employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), an official spokesman today said.

Out of a total of 62,000 households, which have been registered under the scheme, 59,000 households in Chamba and Sirmaur districts were being provided employment up to February this year, he said here.

The spokesman said apart from these two districts, the scheme has also been extended to Mandi and Kangra districts of the state.

The average number of households provided employment in a district of the state was 29,506 as against a national average of 91,685 households, he said.

Besides, he said 8,000 households in the state have provided 100 days of guaranteed employment under the scheme so far.

The number of man days of employment provided in the state was 23.07 lakh, he said and added that the average man days of employment provided in a district was 11.54 lakh as compared to the national average of 36.47 lakh man days.

The spokesman said the employment was provided on 8,094 works, out of which 3,725 works have been completed.

The average number of works taken up in a district stood at 4,047 as against the national average of 3,581, he said.

He said an amount of Rs. 42.08 crore has been released to the state during 2006-07 of which the government had sent a sum of Rs 29.22 crore up to February, which was 51.77 per cent of the total availability.

The expenditure on wages was 55.21 per cent, material 44.05 per cent and on administration 0.74 per cent, while the average expenditure of a district in the state was Rs 14.61 crore as compared to the national average of Rs 35 crore, he said.

The spokesman said while the Act provided that one third of the employment should be provided to women, the state provided 10.51 per cent man days of employment to women, 29.74 per cent man days to the SCs and 22.49 per cent to the STs.

UNI