District administration will resume on Saturday the project to provide employment to persons from poor rural households, popularly the 100-day rural employment generation programme or MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Act).
According to sources, following the State Government’s order allowing MGNREGA works, the district administration had decided to permit the works, beginning Saturday.
The State Government had on April 23 issued Government Order 203 permitting the work.
The Government had ordered the stoppage of MNREGA work on March 26 to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The order said works relating to irrigation and water conservation in rural areas would be permitted but not in containment zones and ‘red’ blocks (areas with more than 14 COVID-19 positive cases).
It also directed the officers concerned to ensure that the workers wore masks, there were not more than one-third of the required number of workers and personal distancing norm was followed.
Consequent upon the order, the administration had decided to resume the rural employment work from Saturday, Collector K. Rajamani said and added that the administration would resume the work in 105 of the 228 panchayats.
On a precautionary note, the administration would not resume the work in peri-urban panchayats – those panchayats that bordered urban areas like Kurudampalayam, Somayampalayam, Malumichampatty, Perur Chettipalayam, Achipatti (near Pollachi) and many such areas.
Interested persons from among the eligible should get in touch with either the block development officer concerned or anyone from his or her office or village panchayat presidents or vice presidents, said officials in the District Rural Development Agency.
But those with fever, respiratory symptoms would not be allowed.
The Agency’s Project Officer Ramesh Kumar said he had instructed all block development officers to ensure that in addition to masks, the workers had facility to wash hands at the end of the day’s work.
He had also asked the officials on ground to ensure that the personal distancing norm was maintained in such a way that the distance between one worker and another was two metre. And, if any worker showed fever or other COVID-19-like symptoms, alert the block medical officer.
The district administration was to have resumed work on April 21 but dropped it at the eleventh hour following instructions from the Government. The district has 1.02 lakh active workers registered under MGNREGA.
