BENGALURU: Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister KS Eshwarappa on Friday said the state is getting funds required for the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the reduction in the allocation of funds for the project in the Union budget will not have any impact on the works in the state.
Speaking to media persons, the minister said the department is getting adequate funds from the Centre and the state for all its projects, including MGNREGA and Jal Jeevan Mission. “There is no problem at all and the Centre is releasing funds for all our projects as an when we request them,” he said.
The Opposition Congress had hit out at the Centre for cutting allocation for MGNREGA by 25 per cent in the budget and had expressed concern over the implementation of the scheme. The minister said after the state completed the target of 13 crore man-days of work by December 2021, the Centre released an additional Rs 715 crore to increase it by another 1.40 crore guaranteed man-days of work.
Eshwarappa said the Centre has appreciated the state’s performance in the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission, the project to provide tap water to rural households. “We have now reached the national average of 46 per cent and within a month we will do better than the national average,” he said.
The state cabinet on Wednesday approved 16 projects to provide water to 6,17,607 households in 6,357 villages, the minister said and added that they will achieve the target of providing tap water to 97.91 lakh households by 2023-24.