Following a phenomenal increase in employment demand and wage disbursement, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) cell in the district has requested the district panchayat for temporary advance of fund for utilisation under the scheme.
The MGNREGS cell has requested for an advance of around Rs.10 crore from the district panchayat.
The district, which is heading towards the top spot in the implementation of MGNREGS in the State, has already disbursed around Rs.101.40 crore in the current fiscal for the implementation of various schemes under the project.
The MGNREGS cell in the district has already borrowed Rs.15 crore from Thrissur district in order to meet the high expenditure under the project.
“The total fund available for implementation of MGNREGS in the current year was Rs.88.96 crore. By mid-February our expenditure reached Rs.97.41 crore. In order to face the urgent situation our Mission Director ordered a transfer of Rs.15 crore from Thrissur district,” said Joint Programme Coordinator A.V. Asok Kumar.
High job demand
“Since the period from January to March is the lean agricultural period, job demand is at the maximum throughout the district. If we are not able to disburse wages on time it will become a bigger issue. We have also requested the Government of India to grant an additional release of Rs.45 crore and it is understood that it has already been cleared. Once we receive this amount we will be able to pay back the loan taken from Thrissur district and also from the Thiruvananthapuram district panchayat,” Mr. Asok Kumar said.
On several fronts
The district has recorded best performance in the State in several parameters of the project implementation. According to the Management Information System (MIS) data on the MGNREGS project implementation as on February 24, 2012, the district has the highest wage disbursement and the highest number of households issued job cards.
Around 1.98 lakh households in the districts have been issued job cards so far in the current fiscal, out of which 1.57 lakh households have been provided employment. The district also tops in the number of person-days generated (around 58.12 lakh), unskilled wage disbursement (around Rs.97.96 crore), number of households completing 100 days (5,213) and average person-days generated (39.14).
Out of the 73 grama panchayats in the district, 51 have spent above Rs.1 crore under the scheme. Chenkal grama panchayat in Parassala block has utilised maximum fund with a disbursement of Rs.6 crore and 3,208 households in the panchayat have completed 100 days.
Meanwhile three grama panchayats, Anchuthengu, Mangalapuram and Ottashekharamangalam, in the district do not have even a single household that has completed 100 days employment.
“Following the ward delimitation in the last local body polls, we lost around four months initially to rework our database and issue fresh job cards to every household. Otherwise we could have completed more works under the scheme. In any case Thiruvananthapuram is likely to become the best performing district in the State by the end of the financial year. If it does so it will be the first time the district achieves the top spot,” an official said.
