Shillong, March 20: The East Garo Hills district has provided 100 days of employment to all households registered in trouble-torn Samanda community and rural development block in East Garo Hills, according to the annual report of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for 2010-11.

The report tabled in the House today said 2010-11 has seen considerable improvement in the implementation of MGNREGS, especially in West Garo Hills, East Garo Hills, West Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi districts. These districts have achieved more than 95 per cent of their labour budget, the report said.

According to the report, special recognition can be accorded to the administration of East Garo Hills district, which has provided 100 days of employment to all households registered in Samanda block.

"This is in spite of the fact that the district witnessed unprecedented ethnic clashes among the residents of Assam and Meghalaya, which has affected the implementation of government programmes for months together," the report said. There were frequent reports of scams related to the implementation of the project this year and last year in Khasi Hills. However, the report said the state had provided an average of 57.73 person days to as many as 3,46,129 households which had demanded works during 2010-11 year, which is higher than the national average of 42.04 person days per household.

The MGNREGS aims to provide unskilled wage employment to registered beneficiaries but in the process, it also creates sustainable assets that would provide livelihood, enhance road connectivity, conserve water and environment and improve irrigation facilities to the rural people, it said. "The year 2010-11 was a promising one in furthering the mission of making the MGNREG Act a success," it added.

The report also pointed out that in terms of expenditure, 2010-11 has shown an expenditure of Rs 319.85 crore which is an increase of 74 per cent over 2009-10. "The total funds sanctioned during 2010-11 is Rs 332.93 crore against Rs 228.79 crore received during the previous year. The total fund utilisation was recorded at 96.1 per cent. The report also said the state government had emphasised better management techniques, which can accord better achievements in the implementation of the scheme.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by the state government with the State Bank of India on November 15, 2010 to provide business correspondence facility to MGNREGA wage earners.

"This is done to ensure better cash disbursal system, which had raised a lot of allegations of corrupt practices," the report said.

According to the banking correspondence model, the state government will directly deposit the wages of workers into their personal accounts.

In the rural areas where there are branches of the banks, the workers can directly approach the branches to avail of the wages.In far-flung villages where there are no branches of the banks, the business correspondents who work as agents of the banks will assist the workers to ensure that they get wages on time. It also said the government has also initiated steps to create a society at the state level, which will manage the State Employment Guarantee Fund, a corpus dedicated as a resource pool, which can be utilised during fund shortage in the districts.

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Job scheme success despite ethnic clashes