Addressing a large gathering at Vigyan Bhawan on this occasion in New Delhi, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh called upon the states to strengthen the Gram Sabhas for rural empowerment. He said the Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Panchayati Raj has jointly chalked out a plan to strengthen the Panchayats. Technical Units will be set up in Gram Panchayats and to improve the managerial efficiency every unit will have a Panchayat Development officer and one Junior Engineer. Focus would be on Left Wing Extremism(LWE) affected districts and the districts where more than Rs.100 crore have been spent under MGNREGA.
Referring to the steps taken by the Government to address the concerns of MGNREGA workers, the Prime Minister said wages under MGNREGA have been hiked by 17-30% this year and the transparency and accountability in payment of wages would be ensured by the help of modern ICT enabled techniques like Biometric hand held devices. He made it clear that the time has come to improve the delivery mechanism of the Act so as to extend the employment benefits to the genuine persons. Highlighting the achievements under MGNREGA, Dr. Singh said so far under this programme a total of 880 crore person days work has been generated of which 52% beneficiaries are from SC/ST while 47% beneficiaries are women. Efforts are being made to chalk out Micro-Plans at rural level by involving the local people. These plans will decide the category and place of works to be done under MGNREGA besides involving rural masses in the implementation, monitoring and social auditing.
The UPA Chairperson Smt. Sonia Gandhi while expressing her happiness on the overall performance of MGNREGA said this is also the time to learn from the experience and to prepare for the challenges ahead. She termed the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA as a life line of the rural people which has not only been a source of empowerment for them but also a means of social security. She said half of the job holders are women and the increased wages under this Act has helped in checking the distress migration of labours. Lauding the creation of Green Jobs under MGNREGA, the UPA Chairperson said that water harvesting and ground water recharge works are not only a short term employment but capable of ensuring permanent employment opportunities. Expressing concerns over reported instances of misappropriations in wage payment she said remedial steps should be taken in this regard. Mrs. Gandhi laid emphasis on strengthening the social auditing and said the cooperation of SHGs and NGOs should be taken to increase the land productivity.