Officials told to generate local livelihoods to stop migration

Kurnool: District Collector P Ranjit Basha has warned officials that strict action will be taken if employment is not provided under Employment Guarantee Scheme to prevent labor migration.

He held a review meeting through teleconference with APDs, MPDOs, APOs, and Housing Department officials on Friday to assess implementation of Employment Guarantee Scheme and housing projects.

The Collector directed the officials to ensure that laborers in villages do not migrate in search of work by providing employment under the scheme. He questioned the officials as to how targets could be missed despite regular reviews and teleconferences, stressing that he will not accept excuses such as village festivals or fairs for lack of work.

The Collector said the goal is to provide jobs to one lakh people daily in every village panchayat.

The DWMA PD was instructed to give the details of any panchayat where work was not being conducted. Pointing out newspapers’ reports of people migrating due to lack of employment, he warned MPDOs, APOs, field assistants, and technical assistants that they will face action if laborers migrated due to insufficient work.

APDs, MPDOs, and APOs were ordered to visit villages and create awareness to ensure laborers participate in employment schemes and also told to submit tour diaries detailing their field visits.

The Collector expressed concern over lack of progress in some mandals and questioned MPDOs and APOs of these mandals that only 60% of work had been completed even though February was nearing its end. The Collector instructed the DWMA PD to issue show-cause notices to Peddakaduburu MPDO and Kowtalam APO for failing to meet the daily and weekly work targets.

Regarding housing projects, Collector Ranjit mentioned that significant progress had been made, with only 30 days remaining to complete pending constructions. He acknowledged good progress in Yemmiganur and Kurnool clusters, but expressed dissatisfaction over slow progress in constructing soak pits, where out of 3,000 sanctioned, only 270 had been completed. He praised the progress in the Adoni sub-division and instructed other sub-divisions to achieve similar results.

The Collector mentioned that the State government had issued orders to allot 3 cents in rural areas and 2 cents in urban areas for housing sites. He directed the Sub-Collector and RDOs to take necessary action for re-verification and identification of beneficiaries.

The teleconference was attended by Joint Collector Dr B Navya, Assistant Collector Challa Kalyani, DWMA PD Venkata Ramanaiah, Housing PD Ajay Kumar, special mandal officers, MPDOs, and housing officials.