New Indian Express reports on Rural development secretary Subas Pani’s visit and his suggestions to Orissa government on NREGS and PMGSY (Pradhan mantri gramsadak yojana). Following are some excerpts.

The Centre has advised the State Government to increase its spending capacity as allocation of funds is unlimited under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

Union Rural Development Secretary Subas Pani … said Orissa and Bihar were two focus states of the Centre.

Pani further informed the Chief Minister that the Centre had increased the fund for capacity building. Earlier, two percent of the total allocation was meant for capacity building. Now this has been increased to four percent.

This can be better utilised for online monitoring of the projects, he said. Pani reviewed the progress of the two programmes at an official meeting and strongly advised the State Government to put an effective mechanism in place for timely execution of a large number of projects and handling such huge funds.

The State Government has submitted proposals of nearly 4,000 crore to the Rural Development Ministry under PMGSY and NREGS.

While the Panchayati Raj Department has submitted proposal for Rs 2,500 crore to the Centre under NREGS and other wage employment programmes, project proposals worth Rs 1,500 crore by the Rural Development Department are pending for clearance.

The Union Secretary strongly felt the need for a dedicated team of officials at district and State-levels for monitoring in view of the large number of projects under execution.

Over one lakh projects have been taken up under the NREGS while hundreds of rural connectivity projects are under implementation.

The Union Secretary emphasised on computerisation of gram panchayats for online monitoring of the projects.

He also suggested to involve officials of other line departments to monitor the NREGS projects.

Following is from a Zee News report.

With the aim to accelerate development in rural areas, the Centre has released Rs 1346 crore to Orissa under various programmes in 2006-07, out of which Rs 762 crore has been allocated under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act covering 19 districts.

During the current fiscal, the Government has so far released Rs 445 crore to Orissa against the central allocation of Rs 614 crore under major allocation based schemes, official sources said.

Under the NREGA, a total 799.34 lakh person days employment were generated, of which 198.06 lakh person days were for SCs, 393.87 for STs, 284.58 for women and 216.41 lakh persons days for others.

A total of 51,521 works were taken up in the state under the programmes, out of which 18,803 works have been completed and 32,718 are ongoing.

During 2007-08, five additional districts have been included under NREGA. Central release is Rs 94.20 crore and total available funds as on April 1, was Rs 263.28 crore, out of which expenditure of Rs 16.52 crore has been reported.

Under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the entitlement of Orissa from 2000-01 till 2006-07 was Rs 1,411 crore against which Rs 1804 crore has already been released and Rs 1638.29 crore has been spent by the state government.

Under Bharat Nirman programme, 2312 habitations of 1000 plus population and 2135 habitations of 500 plus population are proposed to be covered and 9993.36 km road is proposed to be constructed under it in Orissa, they said.