Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (SP)

Kundapur, Jun 19: Laxmidevi, who headed the district level central observation team which visited the taluk on Wednesday June 18, felt that there is an emergent need for the gram panchayats to arrange for spot payment of amounts due to labourers working under National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Act.

She felt that such a step, which can be taken by arranging for payment of wages due through mobile ATMs of nationalized banks as pracatised elsewhere in the country not only saves time for the labourers as they need not travel to distant places to collect their wages, but also saves man hours.

She was addressing a meeting organized at Haklady after visiting Haklady gram panchayat in the taluk. The delegation was here to inspect progress of various works approved by the central government in Haklady under the above scheme. Laxmidevi also held discussions about pros and cons of the said scheme, as also under the Indira Awaz scheme, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, drinking project, and watershed projects.

Panchayat development officer of the panchayat provided details of developments under various works during the year 2013-14. He said that bills relating to the construction of toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, which had been pending payment because of software problems faced at the central level, have now been cleared for payment. People representing workers demanded to increase the yearly quota of man days of work under the scheme from the present 100 days to 150 days a year.

Taluk watershed development officer, Mohanraj, who is the district nodal officer for the scheme, district convener, Mahesh, taluk nodal officer, Vasatiya Priyadarshan, watershed officer, Raghuram Shetty, several other officials and locals apart from gram panchayat president, Kishore Kumar, were present on the occasion.