Writeup AP 2011-12 - Punjab State Planning Board

opportunities for rural poor in the villages. Activities of 7 departments v.i.z. Social Security,
Women and Child Development, Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes, Water Supply and
Sanitation, Rural Development & Panchayats, Health & Family Welfare, School Education
and Animal Husbandry have been transferred to the PRIs. 1186 rural health dispensaries,
5752 primary schools and 581 rural veterinary dispensaries have been transferred to the Zila
Parishads. 1160 medical service providers, 12551 primary school teachers and 369 veterinary
service providers have been recruited by the Zila Parishads. ICDS centres are being run
under the supervision of Gram Panchayats. Also, 876 rural water supply schemes have been
transferred to the Gram Panchayats. Presently 1083 medical service providers, 12227
primary school teachers and 465 veterinary service providers are working through the PRIs.
The training of panches/sarpanches is being carried out on a large scale.
37. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme was
launched in district Hoshiarpur of the state on 2nd February 2006. The scheme was extended
to the three districts of Amritsar, SBS Nagar and Jalandhar during 2007-08. All the districts
of the state have been covered with effect from 1/4/2008. The basic objective of the scheme
is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed
wage employment to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled
manual work. This scheme is being successfully implemented in the State. Under this
programme an expenditure of Rs. 450.44 crore has been incurred, 229.51 lakh person days
of employment have been generated and about 7.77 lakh households have been provided
employment up to 31/1/2011. A sum of Rs.180 crore has been spent and 71.60 lakh man days
of employment has been created during 2010-11 against the corresponding figures of 149
crore and 76 lakh man days in 2009-10. About 8.08 lakh households have been issued job
cards. An outlay of Rs. 300 crore has been earmarked for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme for the year 2011-12. Keeping in view the convergence
guidelines of this scheme, new projects are being prepared by the departments of forests,
irrigation, agriculture and flood control. More amounts can be spent if the construction of
toilets for SC and BPL families and boundary walls for schools and hospitals, lining of
distributaries, minors, water courses, and white washing of government buildings are
included in the list of approved works under MGNREGS. The real bottleneck in
implementation of this scheme is extremely low wage rate of Rs. 123/- per day in Punjab
against Rs. 179/- per day in the Haryana.
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