Women's Engagement in MGNREGA Projects Promotes Women's Empowerment: Maurya

By: WE Staff | Friday, 6 May 2022

Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Keshav Prasad Maurya has urged officials from the Rural Development Department to make serious, constructive, and significant efforts to ensure that targeted women mates are deployed in all gram panchayats in MGNREGA projects. By initiating a campaign, Maurya stated all block development officers, gram panchayat development officers, village development officers, and employment servants should be able to reach this goal as soon as possible.

Mahila mates (women maters) will be deployed from UPSRLM (Uttar Pradesh Rural Livelihood Mission) block level units and will be employed throughout the year to promote women empowerment and self-reliance.

Maurya stated that officers/employees who were irresponsible in the selection of women mates would face severe consequences. The deputy chief minister provided these instructions while presiding over a meeting at his camp office about the MGNREGA implementation.

He directed the officers of the Rural Development Department's MGNREGA cell to raise MGNREGA workers' wages in line with those in other states, as well as wages set by the Labor Department and other large organisations.

He suggested that a strategy be developed and that a meeting be convened with officials from the Ministry of Rural Development to write a draught in this regard.

Maurya asserted that in order to increase farmers' income under MGNREGA, a plan should be devised to incorporate more and more agricultural activities, such as crop harvesting, threshing, and the removal of water hyacinth from lakes and ponds.

People in rural areas, he argued, would profit if this was done. "There are 264 types of works under MGNREGA; a strategy should be devised to include more works," he said, adding that huge and eminent organisations' opinions may be sought on what more innovative and village-oriented works might be done under the MGNREGA. According to Maurya, 'Bharat Seva Nirman Kendras' (community buildings) should be built in villages under MGNREGA and named after a well-known Indian personality.

He added that MGNREGA should include provisions for gram panchayats to rehabilitate its material and infrastructure. He suggested devising a strategy to clean the riverbeds of rivers on the point of extinction.

He suggested that an action plan be developed to make appropriate use of the dirt generated by MGNREGA projects' raw works, which might be sold by gram panchayats for use in creating tiles, roads, and other projects. Maurya further emphasised the importance of including small-scale farmers in MGNREGA programmes. He suggested that a plan be devised to provide work for large farmers in developing ponds for fish farming and tree plantation under the MGNREGA.

He urged officials to post the names of individuals who worked in MGNREGA schemes for the required number of days on the Labor Department's website/portal so that they might benefit from 'deemed registration' and social security. Women's engagement in MGNREGA projects, according to Maurya, should be encouraged to promote women's empowerment and self-reliance. He claimed that if a model plan for village development was created, most of the communities' issues would be handled.

According to him, at least one gram panchayat in each block should be formed as a model gram panchayat, and a model for building communal animal barns under MGNREGA should be created. He also suggested making plans to construct animal barns on pastures.