Govt launches MGNREGS in census towns of state

SHILLONG, July 12: The Mahatma Gandhi National. Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was on Tuesday launched in census towns of Meghalaya.
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, after launching the scheme during an event here, expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Rural Development for clarifying the status of census towns.
“It was because of the ambiguity in the actual classification of census towns, the census towns could not derive benefits from neither the urban schemes nor the rural schemes and had missed out a lot of developmental programmes,” Conrad said.
The chief minister informed that it has been clarified by the Centre that MGNREGS is applicable in rural areas and since the census towns have neither been notified as urban areas nor as cantonment areas, MGNREGS can operate in census towns.
“It is with a great sense of satisfaction today that I stand here to announce that the census towns can now derive the benefits of MGNREGS,” he said.
Stating that Meghalaya has been performing exceptionally well in MGNREGS, the CM stressed on a wider reach of the central scheme.
“We are also one of the first states to have women reservation of 15 per cent in the committees of the MGNREGS and today we have close to 2,500 women secretaries in different VECs.
That reflects the equality and gender participation on important decisions that are made at the grassroots level,” the chief minister said.
Others who were part of the programme include C&RD Minister Hamletson Dohling, Principal Secretary of C&RD department Sampat Kumar, local MLAs and MDCs, et al.