Bhubaneswar: In an aim to ensure livelihood support to the poor, the state government has decided to scale up various development projects in convergence with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
This was decided at the Governing Body meeting of MGNREGS Society held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy in Lok Seva Bhawan here Wednesday.
It was decided to take up more number of projects in sectors like agriculture, horticulture, rural housing, land development, rural sanitation, plantation, seedling raising, rural parks, livelihood enhancement, water harvesting, pond development etc.
Reviewing the progress of MGNRGES projects in different districts, Tripathy directed the departments concerned to keep ready a shelf of innovative projects as per need of the local community in consultation with Panchayati Raj department.
He further directed the officials to take up child-friendly interventions in Anganwadi Centres and development of land given under Forest Rights Act (FRA) in convergence with MGNREGS.
Presenting the updates, MGNREGS state project director Rajesh Patil said Odisha is ahead of national average in the indicators like project completion, geo-tagging, timely payment of wages, individual beneficiary based projects, e-payment, and employment generation.
Around 91 per cent of the projects up to FY 2018-19 have been completed against the national average of 89.5 per cent, he said.
Similarly, 95 per cent of the assets created under MGNREGS during Phase-I and 84 per cent assets created under Phase-II have been geo-tagged against the national average of 91 per cent and 79 per cent respectively.
With regard to timely payment of wages, 99.4 per cent of payments have been made within the scheduled timeline against the national average of 96.5 per cent.
The percentage of the completion of individual beneficiary based projects has gone up to 86 per cent against national average of 68 per cent. The percentage of workers seeded with Aadhaar number and paid their wages through e-payment is around 89 per cent against national average of 74 per cent, he said.
The director said percentage of mandays created in Odisha is 85 per cent of the approved labour budget against the national average of 79.6 per cent.
In the current year, 844.92 lakh person days have been generated by January 20 which is 14.67 lakh more than the person days created during 2018-19. Lemon grass cultivation in convergence with MGNREGS has proved effective in Sonepur district. Experts say farmers can earn Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 per acre through this cultivation.