NREGS en route to success in DK

Registration goes up by five times in a span of three months

Startling but true 45,060 households were registered under the scheme as on September 22, 2009 while 42,635 job cards were distributed as against minimal 8,000 registrations and 4,000 job card distribution that took place till June 2009.  The future from this point seems green for the scheme as people are coming forth to take up works. As on September 22, 2009, 751 works were in progress costing about Rs 71.62 lakh as against the Rs 21 lakh works done in the district during last year. Government had released Rs 173 lakh during 2008-09.

This year as far as implementation of projects is concerned, Bantwal taluk rules the roost with 232 ongoing works at a cost of Rs 22 lakhs, followed by Belthangady taluk with 231 ongoing works at a cost of Rs 30.10 lakh. Puttur has 180 ongoing works at a cost of Rs 13.22 lakh, Sullia with 180 works at a cost of Rs 4.83 lakh. Mangalore stand at the last position with 19 works costing Rs 1.2 lakh. Out of 203 Gram Panchayats in Dakshina Kannada, 164 GPs have taken up works and 39 GPs have not yet taken up works at all.

‘Phenomenal’
Speaking to Deccan Herald, Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Shivashankar informed that the growth rate of registration and job card distribution has been phenomenal but yet the utilisation of funds and execution of work has to progress a great deal.

“As per the rule, we are to utilise 60 per cent of the funds in a year. If we look at our progress, there has been an upward trend but the growth in execution of work is not sufficient,” he said and added that over the last 3 months, ZP took up a massive campaign to reach out to people directly to inform them and convince them to take up works under NREGS.

“Earlier, ZP used to train and speak to the Executive Officers, GP secretaries who used to pass on the information to the elected representatives. When elected representatives gave the information to people, there used to be some inevitable distortion. To fill the gap between ZP and people, we decided to go to people directly and speak about the NREGS. That has made a great deal of difference,” says Shivshankar.

Dakshina Kannada district stands at 29th place in the district for implementation of NREGS, next only to Udupi district while Bagalkot, Gulbarga, Bidar district are ranking top.
Shivshankar says that the socio-economic condition in Dakshina Kannada cannot be compared to the North Karnataka districts. That is the main reason for the success of the scheme in those districts.

However, he has a target of implementing works of Rs 2 crore during current year. He says that inclusion of Horticulture under NREGS has given boost to the implementation and proposal has been sent to include agriculture (paddy cultivation) under NREGS. “If this happens, then sky is the limit for Dakshina Kannada district,” he opines.