"If an officer takes interest in the execution of schemes of the centrally- sponsored Act, there will be no problem in payment of wages," said MGNREGA national inquiry committee member Wilfred Lakra, prasing the BDOs of Dumri and Ghaghra Shishir Kumar Singh and Manoj Kumar respectively for taking interest in execution of MGNREGA schemes. Rest of the blocks too should show similar interest, he suggested.
Lakra recently visited a number of blocks Bharno, Raidih, Chainpur and Ghaghra of the district and found villagers were enthusiastic about construction of wells.
"If material required for construction of wells like stone boulders are made available to them on time and timely payment is made, a large number of schemes of digging wells could be completed before the onset of monsoon," said Lakra.
When asked about the concept of panchayat bank for timely payment of labourers, he hailed the new move saying, "I have seen it functioning at Kanke block of Ranchi. But it needs to be properly functional in Itki block".
The innovative idea of panchayat bank was mooted by state MGNREGA commissioner, Ajoy Kumar Singh by which a bank’s satellite branch or pragya kendras will function like panchayat banks in order to make online payment to labourers who need not look to clearance from the block office. These banks will function at panchayat secretariats located in villages, which need to be activated immediately, Singh said.
Gumla is also to start wage payment through the same mode soon, an official source said. Jharkhand is perhaps the first state which initiated the concept of panchayat banks to speed up payment at villages in the country.