Thanjavur: Winning an award from the Central government is a feather in the cap of a state government. It was one joyous moment as Thanjavur district received the national award for implementing Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) well for the year 2016-17. The district scored in cent per cent distribution of wages under e-payment, giving work to maximum number of persons and maintaining proper documents.
Narendra Singh Thomar, union minister for rural development and panchayati raj, Ram Giripal, union minister of state for rural development and panchayati raj, presented the award to S.P. Velumani, state minister for urban administration and rural development, on September 11 in Delhi.
A certificate was presented to A. Annadurai, Thanjavur district collector on the occasion. Amirth Sinha, secretary, department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and Mantrachalam, project director, District rural development agency, Thanjavur, participated in the function.
“While this award is an indicator of the continuous efforts we made to reach as many benefits under the scheme to people and dovetailing of diversified programmes with it, the award also reminds us of keeping the same standard in future and develop the programme to help people below poverty line and relieve them from poverty,” said A. Annadurai, Thanjavur district collector.
P. Mantrachalam, project director, DRDA, said that MGNREGS has stopped migration of labour. “We have given 140 lakh man-days of work,” he said. Per capita income had gone up and many small and marginal farmers benefitted out of the scheme. Electronic fund management and Aadhaar-linked payment of wages are the unique features in the implementation of MGNREGS in Thanjavur district. Asset creation is enormous as we constructed soak pits, anganwadi buildings, compound walls for schools and farm ponds Mantrachalam added.
It all began 2,000 years ago: Dt collector Annadurai
Water regulation and conservation is not new to people of Tamil Nadu. It started 2,000 years back when Karikal Cholan built Grand Anicut. That is one of the oldest regulators in the world. Dams in USA are only 1,400 years old. In Europe also it is the same.
But only in Tamil Nadu we built Grand Anicut 2,000 years back. But unfortunately we forgot that in the middle and started encroaching canals, polluting rivers.
Under MGNREGS in Thanjavur district we are involving people in water conservation, afforestation, drought-proofing and enabling them for many other economic, environmental programmes. The overall impact is good. Farmers could pay crop insurance premium using MGNRES wages.
They could survive drought-worst in 140 years in the year 2014-15. Works taken up in this year under MGNREGS resulted in increasing underground water potential, increased agriculture productivity in the following year. We want to sustain this development
