Berhampur: Ganjam district in Odisha has occupied the top position in the country in generating man-days and providing 100 days of work to rural households under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) till January 22 of this financial year, officials said.
As many as 63,449 households in the district have been provided 100 days of employment.
Ganjam also generated 2.26 crore man-days under the rural employment scheme during the same period and topped the country, Keerthi Vassan V, executive officer, Ganjam zilla parishad (ZP), said.
Ganjam was followed by Barmera (2.18 crore) in Rajasthan and Tiruvannamalai (2.13 crore) in Tamil Nadu in generating man days during the period.
Kandhamal district (35,141), Barmera (34,994) and Bolangir (26,209) stood second, third and fourth respectively in the country in providing jobs to 100 households during the period, the officials said.
Ganjam district has also achieved the top position (58 per cent) among 30 districts of the state in the participation of women under the scheme, the officials said.
The district has an annual target of generating 3.54 crore man-days in 2022-23 fiscal, they said.
In 2021-22, Ganjam district provided 100 days of work to 1,29,290 households and topped the country.
The district had also generated 2, 99, 00,497 man-days of work under the rural employment scheme during the last fiscal, ranking fourth in the country, they said.
The job created under the labour-intensive scheme has helped rural people to sustain their livelihoods during the post-pandemic period and helped the job-seekers to stay back in their native villages without returning to their workplaces where they were employed before the outbreak of the Covid-19 in the country, said Vassan.
Various infrastructure projects like cattle hostels, rural parks, rural tourist circuits, model hatcheries, library-cum-infotainment centres, model ponds, cremation sheds, gymnasiums and others were taken up under the scheme, apart from construction of roads, and drains, he said
Over 4 lakh migrant workers had returned to Ganjam when a national lockdown was imposed in 2020 to check the spread of coronavirus.
Several workers stayed back even after the situation had normalised, which was leading to an increase in demand for jobs in the MGNREGA, said Berhampur MP, Chandra Sekhar Sahu.
PTI