A CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG: Providing livelihood opportunities to rural households in the State has been a key focus area of the Meghalaya Government. Since 2018, 500 more people have been employed in the State daily within the last four years, compared to the previous four years. Also, more than Rs 4,000 crore has been invested on rural employment under MGNREGS in past four years. Simultaneously, an average amount of Rs 13,600 has been transferred to each rural household in the last four years under the MGNREGS programme, creating more than 75,000 rural infrastructural assets in the past four years.
The success of MGNREGS in the State is attributed to the unique implementation model at the village level, where there is a Village Employment Council (VEC) which is vested with powers and responsibilities of the scheme. Last year alone, more than 99% of the people who applied for job cards have successfully received them. Schemes such as MGNREGS have been instrumental in States like Meghalaya where more than 80% of the population resides in the rural areas.The best instances of the success of MGNREGS are that from Kongthong village, where a 90-meter-long bridge connecting Mawrah village has been constructed with an expenditure of Rs 80 lakh, thereby avoiding the journey around the hill. The construction of the bridge started in 2019 and has provided 196 job cards to the local villagers, with an outlay of Rs 50 lakh as wage expense. The bridge is ideated with the support of indigenous engineers and is a perfect example of how indigenous skilled and experienced masons have created a marvellous structure like this.
Also Watch: