86 pc wages of 1 crore workers paid within 15 days: Govt

The government today said it has paid 86 per cent of wages out of nearly one crore workers under the MGNREGS scheme within 15 days.
Timely payment of wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been a major concern for the government from some time.
The Central government has ensured timely release of funds and states have responded by strengthening the implementation machinery to provide timely payments, the Union rural development ministry said.
"..Nearly 80 lakhs to 1 crore workers are coming everyday for work in different parts of the country under MGNREGS. Over 86 per cent of them are paid within 15 days. This is a remarkable improvement compared to earlier years," the ministry said in a statement.

The thrust of MGNREGS works is on agriculture and allied activities, and it is visible at the field level, it added.
Works under MGNREGS have created over 91 lakh hectares of irrigation potential in the last two years which is currently being evaluated by the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi.

2,264 water stressed blocks have received special attention for natural resource management, water harvesting and water conservation.
2.62 lakh water conservation works have been completed in the current financial year including more than 1.31 lakh farm ponds across the country.
Also, 1.45 crore assets of beneficiaries of MGNREGS have been geo-tagged so far and are in the public domain while 5.2 crore workers are already on the Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS) and over 9 crore workers have seeded their Aadhaar details with consent in NREGA software.

Eighty-seven per cent of job cards have been verified and 1.1 crore job cards have been deleted so far after giving reasons.