Yogi govt pays rozgar sevaks’ dues, shows focus on MNREGS

LUCKNOW: The state government on Tuesday transferred Rs 225.39 crore dues to 35,818 Gram Rozgar Sevaks (GRS), reflecting its renewed focus on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MNREGS) in its fight against Covid-19.

Yogi made the token transfer online at a programme at his residence here.

Speaking on the occasion, Yogi said the sevaks should work under guidance of senior

officers to create more jobs, as a large number of migrants are coming back to the state. He said

attendance of workers should be marked by using the mobile monitoring system (MMS). He also spoke to some sevaks at a video conferencing with them.

A GRS plays an important role in allocation of work, distribution of job cards, marking attendance and helping social audit of the work carried out under the rural job scheme.

On March 30, Rs 611 crore was transferred to 2.57 lakh MNREGS workers by state government to clear pending wages of the workers of the rural job scheme that guarantees 100 days work to every job card holder.

As providing jobs to a large number of migrant labourers reaching the state poses a great challenge, the MNREGS is proving to be a useful instrument for the state government in its fight against Covid-19.

“Yes, MNREGS is the most effective instrument to provide jobs to people in rural areas. The state government has set a target to provide 100-day employment to every willing job card holder. If the government is able to do so, this will be much higher against UP’s average of providing 35-day work and national average of 52-day work under MNREGS in the past few years,” said Sanjay Dixit, former member, Central Employment Guarantee Council of the union rural development ministry.

The state government claims to be providing work to 20 to 22 lakh MNREGS workers every day. It has set up control rooms in every district to connect with workers willing to work and proposes to provide work to 50 lakh workers under the scheme by the end of May.

“Uttar Pradesh has 1.9 crore job card holders and about 60 per cent of them have remained inactive over the years. As people are in need to get work following lockdown enforced to fight coronavirus, the number of workers being provided job has gone up three to four times,” said Dixit, who also has been pushing the cause of Gram Rozgar Sevaks (GRS), who belong to the same village panchayat where MNREGS work is carried out.

A total of 35,818 ‘Gram Rojgar Sevaks’ are working in the state and honorarium was not paid to 26,012 sevaks for 2017-2018, 20182019 and 2019-2020.

An honorarium of Rs 3,630 per month was being paid to the sevaks earlier. This amount was revised to Rs 6,000 per month on November 1, 2016.

The state government has now decided to reserve administrative charge funds for payment of honorarium to ‘Gram Rozgar Sevaks’ at the state level in an obvious bid to avoid delays.

Dixit said the state government should also take care of giving the GRS social security benefits by covering them under provident fund scheme.