Kolkata: The West Bengal government will
introduce biometric job cards to the NREGA beneficiaries to
facilitate early payment for jobs done by them, Panchayat and
Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said on Wednesday.
Replying to questions in the Assembly, Mukherjee said the
government has already floated the tender for the biometric
cards.
The cards would enable the beneficiaries to get their
payments on a daily basis instead of the long waiting period
stretching often upto a month, he said.
While upto 11 days` job was given to beneficiaries in
April, 2011 when the Left Front was in power, it was 28 days
under the present government. The state government aimed to
provide upto 50 days` job under the NREGA, the minister said.
He later told newsmen outside the House that a number of
gram panchayats in Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24-Parganas and
Howrah were not functioning because of political reasons and
the government was diverting funds meant for them to the
panchayats which were functioning properly.
To a querry, he said that between July, 2011 to January,
2012, the government had been able to get 594.68 km of rural
roads metalled from the 16,276.85 km approved for the purpose.
Mukherjee expressed hope that metalling of the remaining
stretch would be completed within the 2012-13 financial year.
PTI
