Workers engaged in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) in Rajasthan will get the construction labourer cards on completion of 90 days of work in a year. The cards will enable them to get the benefits of various social security schemes.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said on Tuesday that the recent decision to give work at MGNREGA sites on demand had provided a major relief to the rural populace during the pandemic. The workers will now get the benefits such as accident insurance, free medical treatment and social security pension through the cards.
With about 54 lakh labourers engaged under MGNREGA in June this year, Rajasthan had occupied the first rank in the country in providing jobs to migrant workers returning to their native villages during the lockdown.
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The construction labourers in the State are governed by the Rajasthan Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2009. Mr. Gehlot instructed the officials at a review of the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department to arrange for expeditious payment of wages to the workers.
The department has preferred giving the individual beneficiary works, such as land improvement or ‘ Apna Khet Apna Kaam ’, construction of cattle sheds, goat sheds, poultry sheds and piggeries and the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Awas Yojana tasks during the pandemic. Mr. Gehlot said this approach would create livelihood assets that could bring the beneficiaries out of poverty permanently. In order to provide wage employment to a large number of labourers, the department will also focus on labour intensive community works, such as development of pastures, playgrounds and crematoriums, model water reservoirs, irrigation works and plantation.