Order issued to hike MGNREGA days to 150 in Gaja-hit dists

According to the order, the increase in working days under MGNREGA would be implemented in 133 blocks in 12 districts including Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Pudukkottai, Sivagangai, Cuddalore, Theni, Tiruchy, Dindigul, Ramanathapuram, Karur and Madurai.

After Cyclone Gaja wreaked havoc in Cauvery Delta districts on November 16, state government carried out various relief measures in the affected areas. As part of the relief measures, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami recently announced in the Assembly, that number of working days under MGNREGS would be increased from 100 to 150 to help people generate revenue after they lost their livelihood in the cyclone.

As announced by Palaniswami, K Baskaran, Director, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, issued an order, recently, directing the Collectors of all 12 cyclone affected areas to implement the order of increasing the working days under MGNREGA.

“It is known that, around 66 lakh coconut trees and 50 lakh horticulture trees like mango, jackfruit, cashew, lemon, coffee etc, across rural areas have fallen due to Cyclone Gaja. Hence, high priority shall be given for the plantation of coconut trees and other horticulture crops and importance shall also be given to Natural Resources Management (NRM) and agriculture allied works,” said Baskaran, in the letter sent to the Collectors.

He had also directed them to select works from approved shelf of projects and if the approved projects are exhausted, they should prepare a supplementary list of works from out of 260 works approved by Gram Sabha. The additional working days shall be implemented in the current financial year, said Baskaran.

He had further informed the District Collectors that NREGAsoft, the software which has information about the details of the workers working under MGNREGA, the number of days allotted to each family and salary given to them, will also be appropriately modified to allow entries for employment, in the 12 districts, up to 150 days.