This story is from May 13, 2021

Odisha: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act comes as ray of hope for Ganjam migrants

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has provided the much-needed boost to rural employment in Ganjam during the pandemic.
Odisha: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act comes as ray of hope for Ganjam migrants
Ganjam also became the first district to cross generation of 50-lakh person days (PDs) and crossed Rs 74.28-crore expenditure in this labour intensive scheme.
BHUBANESWAR: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has provided the much-needed boost to rural employment in Ganjam during the pandemic.
The district tops the list of districts in generating person days (PDs) and money spent to undertake labour intensive works in the current financial year.
Ganjam also became the first district to cross generation of 50-lakh person days (PDs) and crossed Rs 74.28-crore expenditure in this labour intensive scheme.
It achieved the milestone in only one month as actual work for the current financial year started after April 10, said an officer.
By Wednesday, the district generated a cumulative 50,15,991 person days (PDs), as against the annual target of 3.12 PDs for the current year, said project director, district rural development agency (DRDA), Shinde Dattatraya Bhausaheb.
Altogether 46 households have completed 100 days work in the district. It is also highest among all districts in the state. But Ganjam has secured 12th position in completing the work.
Under MGNREGA, every rural household, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work, is entitled to get at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year.
The scheme has emerged as a safety net during the pandemic when a large number of migrant workers, who returned to their villages from major cities joining the work pushing the demand for unskilled work under the rural job guarantee scheme to an all-time high, sources said.
Around 5 lakh migrant workers returned to the district after the outbreak of Covid-19 last year. MP (Berhampur) Chandra Sekhar Sahu has urged the Centre to increase the employment limit under the scheme per family from 100 days to 300 days.
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