DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand government has increased the number of working days guaranteed per year under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) programme from 100 to 150.
Madan Kaushik, state cabinet minister and spokesperson of the government said, "the decision was taken during the cabinet meeting on Saturday. The aim is to provide as much employment opportunities possible to the people."
The number of enrollment increased with at least 2.66 lakh persons signing up for jobs under the scheme.
According to the data of MGNAREGA in Uttarakhand, total of 12.19 lakh job cards have been issued while total number of active workers stand 8.17 lakh.
Interestingly, engineering graduates, diploma and Masters degree holders have also applied for manual jobs in the scheme.
The New Indian Express last year reported that in an attempt to provide jobs to people of Uttarakhand including returning migrants, the state government had sent a proposal to the center requesting approval to provide 200-days of work under MGNREGA.
State government officials said that this is an effort to provide more work opportunities to the people of the state.
In May this year, the state government launched 'Mukhyamantri Swarojgar Yojana’ to provide jobs for returning migrants.
The scheme aims to provide investment subsidy from 15-25% to those who want to start their own businesses such as restaurant, beauty parlour, pisciculture, dairy farm, bar and meat shop in the state.