Women benefit the most under NREGA in Rajasthan

New Delhi, Apr 25 (UNI) Women have emerged as the major beneficiary of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Rajasthan, with over 65 per cent of total of 11.46 lakh households employment going to them in the first year of implementation of NREGA in the state.

In the first phase, NREGA was first implemented in the six districts of Rajasthan during 2006-07 and being further extended to 6 more districts in the current financial year.

The number of personday of employment provided in the state was 912.79 lakh in the state. The average persondays of employment provided in a district is 152.13 lakh compared to the national average of 36.47 lakh person days. Of them, 65.77 per cent are provided to women, 15.57 per cent to SC and 64.08 per cent to members of ST.

The employment was provided on 20,343 works, out of which 6,769 works have been completed. The average number of works taken up in a district are 33,905 against the national average of 3,581. The average number of households provided employment in a district of the State was 1,90,996, while the National Average stands at 91,685.

An amount of Rs. 761.61 crore was released to the State during 2006-07. Up to February 2007, Rs. 593.34 crore was utilized, which is 69.3 per cent of the total availability.

The expenditure on wages is 76.83 per cent, material is 22.12 per cent and on administration 1.05 per cent was spent.

The average expenditure on a district is Rs. 98.99 crore compared to the national average of Rs 35 crore.

UNI