Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Tuesday directed the district magistrates (DMs) to ensure that not a single poor family suffers from lack of livelihood in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.
Naveen was reviewing the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and urban livelihood mission in all the districts through videoconferencing with the Collectors.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented challenge before us since last March. The world economic growth has slowed down and the poor people have suffered the most. The government’s priority is to ensure employment in this difficult time for the poor,” he said.
Stating the government has taken steps to provide livelihood support to the poor people through MGNREGS and state’s own urban livelihood mission, Naveen said the two programmes are expected to create 20 crore man-days by the end of the current financial year.
The CM has warned the District Collectors that strict action will be taken if there is delay in payment of wages under the two schemes.
Emphasizing on timely payment of wages to the beneficiaries, the Chief Minister advised the collectors to monitor it by regularly calling the beneficiaries under Mo Sarkar programme. From January 1, 2021, each district will have a separate Mo Sarkar cell to get feedback from beneficiaries of livelihood programmes, he said.
The CM congratulated the DMs of Jajpur, Koraput and Subarnapur for their excellent work towards the achievement of the MGNREGS targets. Special focus will be given to the migration prone districts. He mentioned that additional 100 man-days and enhanced wages will be given to each family in such districts. Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy said the administration is giving emphasis to create 20 crore man-days in the state. Steps are being taken to provide livelihood support to the marginal farmers and landless agricultural labourers, he said.
Panchayati Raj secretary DK Singh said that the government has issued 7.26 lakh job cards under MGNREGS this year while only 2.96 lakh job cards were issued last year. Employment has been provided to 51 lakh persons of 31 lakh families by creating 14.50 crore man-days.
Similarly, Housing and Urban Development secretary G Mathivathanan said that 8,000 employment generation projects have been taken up in 114 urban local bodies, of which 5,000 have been completed and all the other projects are at various stages of completion. Participating in the discussion, Secretary to Chief Minister (5T) VK Pandian advised Collectors to ensure active involvement of Mission Shakti members for supervision of the programmes and timely payment of their entitlement.