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Rajasthan records nearly 11 lakh extra employment under NREGA

JAIPUR: The state recorded engagement of over 41.67 lakh labourers in MGNREGA work on Thursday. This is 10-11 lakh more than the normal labour engagement of 30-31 lakh in the state. Of these extra 11 lakh labour engagement, 80% are migrant workers who have returned from other states and those people who have lost employment during during lockdown period.

As on May 28, total labour engaged in the country was 2.25 crore.

"There is a huge demand for work under MGNREGA by the migrant workers. Had there been no MGNREGA, people would have died of starvation. Under normal circumstances, labour engagement is 30-31 lakh. Now, we have nearly 11 lakh extra work force. Rajasthan has never touched 41 lakh labour engagement. The highest so far has been around 37-38 lakh labour engagement," said state's MGNREGA commissioner P C Kishan.

"Of the total labourers engaged in work, 80 per cent are migrants workers who have returned to the state from other states and those who have not applied for MGNREGA work in the past 4-5 years. This means they didn't require work under the scheme during those years," he added.

"We are managing this large labour engagement by distributing departmental work to the officials of other departments. Also, the offiicials are working over time to ensure there is no delay in payment of wages of the NREGA workers," he added.

With a nearly 40 lakh (39.92 lakh) labour engagement under MGNREGA in Rajasthan on Monday, 18 districts in the state have recorded over one lakh engagement of labourers. The highest among them is Bhilwara with 3.6 lakh labour engagement. The other districts include Ajmer, Banswara, Baran, Barmer, Bikaner, Bundi, Chittorgarh, Dungarpur, Jaipur, Jalore, Jhalawar, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Pali, Pratapgarh , Tonk and Udaipur.

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