SBI to appoint correspondents for NREGS payments

State Bank of India (SBI), which had recently entered into an agreement with the Orissa government for payment of wages to the beneficiaries of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) at their doorsteps, would appoint its business correspondent in each gram panchayat of the state.

Initially, SBI would appoint the business correspondents for at least 1000 gram panchayats of Orissa, the state’s Panchayati Raj minister Prafulla Samal said.

“The state government has decided to take up the plantation programmes and construction of community tanks through the NREGS work. We have also decided to connect all the gram panchayats through the internet, which would help to maintain transparency and sound communication in the scheme”, Samal said.

“Our government has taken several steps to create more men days under the scheme. Some of the districts in the state including Ganjam have been awarded for the successful implementation of the scheme in the country”, he added.

Admitting that there are some bottlenecks in implementation of NREGS, he said, the state government has no hesitation in adopting the best things done by other states for the successful implementation of this scheme.

The minister was on a visit to Chhatrapur, the district headquarter town of Ganjam district, to inaugurate a two-day, national level workshop on 'State Peer Learning Programme, Special Focus on NREGS Issues'.

The workshop was attended by senior officers including the collectors of 25 districts of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.