By Express News Service
DEHRADUN: Data from Uttarakhand state government revealed that out of total 12.19 lakh MGNAREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) cardholders, 53.65% are women. In the last year, a total of 2.66 lakh people enrolled under the scheme in the state.
According to MGNAREGA data, the total number of active workers in Uttarakhand is 8.17 lakh (Around 67.19%).
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Monday said, “I have instructed the senior officials of the government to review MGNAREGA every 15 days and see what better can be done. Around 80% of the allocated budget for the financial year 2020-21 has been released for development works. We all need to work hard to compensate what we lost during Covid 19 induced lockdown.”
The CM also confirmed that job days in the scheme will soon be increased to 150 from 100 days.
Interestingly, engineering graduates, diploma and Masters degree holders have also applied for manual jobs in the scheme.
The New Indian Express last year reported that in an attempt to provide jobs to people of Uttarakhand including returning migrants, the state government had sent a proposal to the center requesting approval to provide 200-days of work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
At present, the scheme provides guaranteed 100-days of work in a year. The state government officials said that this is an effort to provide more work opportunities to the people of the state.
In May this year, the state government launched ‘Mukhyamantri Swarojgar Yojana’ to provide jobs for returning migrants.
The scheme aims to provide investment subsidy from 15-25% to those who want to start their own businesses such as restaurant, beauty parlour, pisciculture, dairy farm, bar and meat shop in the state.
