SHILLONG:
The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Thursday asked the state government to come up with SOPs to ensure funds for material components for implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) within a period of six months.
A memorandum in this regard was submitted to the C&RD Minister Abu Taher Mondal by a delegation of HYC led by its president Robertjune Kharjahrin and general secretary Roy Kupar Synrem for his necessary intervention.
“We would like to suggest that the State Government should come out with modalities or SOPs that the funds for material components must be released within a period of not more than six months and failure to do so, the Department concerned has to pay with interest to the VECs concerned,” the memorandum said.
The HYC also requested the minister to take steps to release all pending funds to all VECs who has not received the funds for more than six months.
This was after the organisation had received several complaints from various VECs in Khasi-Jaintia Hills regions, that releasing of the funds related to the material components while implementing projects under the scheme takes a lot of times.
In some C&RD Blocks, there are VECs who have not received the funds even after a period of two years. This non-release of funds has badly affected the implementation of the scheme, which is one of the most successful schemes in the State.
Further, the HYC has also suggested for convergence of MLA scheme with MGNREGS in order to bring a meaningful development in the rural areas of the state.
“We suggest that the government should come up with a policy/legislation that not less than 50 per cent of the fund from MLA scheme should be implemented by way of convergence with MGNREGS,” Kharjahrin said while asserting that “this will ensure of not just 100 days guaranteed work to job card holders but it will increase upto 110 days or more guaranteed workdays and also bring more meaningful development to the villages and town.”
He said that the council has also emphasized the need for setting up the Meghalaya Community Rural Development Services and Meghalaya Community Rural Engineering Services. The State Government had in fact already approved a proposal for the same in 2018.
“However, till date we have not seen that the Government has taken serious steps in framing and enacting the rules. Hence we urged upon you to take immediate steps to legislate the above mentioned rules and if the Government has already legislated, it is necessary that the Government should implement the same at the earliest,” the memorandum to Mondal stated.
Kharjahrin said with this decision, the C&RD department will have their own service and staff cadres beginning from the level of gram sevak, junior engineers, Assistant Engineers and BDOs.
As of date, officers working at any level in the department — be it junior engineers, assistant engineers and BDOs were taken by the department on deputation from other departments.
With these service rules, the department would have engineers till the level of Superintending Engineer. The rules will also create more employment opportunities for the youths of the State in addition to enabling the department to implement schemes quicker which in turn will benefit the citizen of the state, the memorandum added.