KALABURAGI: With a view to providing succour to the farm labourers in the rural areas who have been provided employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA), the state government proposes to provide advance wages to the labourers from its kitty.
During an interaction with the media persons here today, Mr Patil, who heads a Cabinet Sub-Committee on Drought, admitted that there was a delay in paying wages to the labourers due to a “technical snag”.
“Due to this snag, we are unable to get funds from the Centre on time causing delay in paying the wages. While we are supposed to get about Rs 242 crores, we have got only Rs 2 crore. The issue came up for discussion with the Prime Minister during recent meeting with the Chief Minister and the former has consented to set right the problem at the earliest. To make up for the delay and also in view of severe drought conditions if the problem is not resolved in three-four days, the state government is seriously contemplating paying advance wages to the labourers”, he added.
Giving a picture of the drought situation in the state, Mr Patil said while 1,000 villages have been affected, tanker service for supplying water is being provided in 1500 villages.
He said the State government is using satellite data from ISRO, to detect underground water sources in the affected areas. “This experiment has helped in identifying five new sources of water in Indi taluk of Vijaypur district. We propose to use this technique in Aland taluk, where drought condition is severe”, he added.
To a query Mr Patil replied that soon a delegation of State Ministers would meet the Maharashtra government to seek the release of water from the Ujini dam to mitigate the water problem in parts of Mumbai and Hyderabad Karnataka region.
