BELAGAVI (Karnataka): Following directions from the State government to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to create employment opportunities to the needy in the drought-affected areas of the State, the Zilla Panchayat has launched a special drive to extend the benefit of the scheme to the unskilled workers in the district.
Since unemployment in villages is one of the direct impacts of natural calamities such as the prevailing drought in various parts of the State, including all the 10 taluks of Belagavi district, the government decided to implement the MGNREGA for unskilled workers by taking up community-based works in every gram panchayat.
According to official sources in the Zilla Panchayat here on Tuesday, special drives had been launched to take up at least one community-based development work in every village in all the taluks of the district. So far 1,047 works had commenced in the 516 gram panchayats in the district. The process of taking up works in the remaining villages was underway and they would commence next week.
The response to the drive was overwhelming in Athani where community-based works were taken up in all the 108 villages under 51 gram panchayats of the taluk on the same day, as pointed out by the ZP Chief Executive Officer Bagadi Gautham. He appreciated the efforts of the officials concerned.
The CEO said works were being monitored by the officials and engineers. So far, 4,02,774 mandays were created under the MGNREGA works during the special drive. Efforts were being made to create more mandays to extend the benefit of the scheme to the needy workers in the drought-affected areas of the district.