By IANS,
Kolkata : The West Bengal government is hopeful of introducing from April this year biometric job cards for beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to provide them early payment for working under the project.
“We are hopeful of introducing biometric job cards to MGNREGA beneficiaries from the next month. It will help them get payments for their work on a daily basis instead of a long waiting period, which sometimes stretches up to a month,” state Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said here Wednesday.
Mukherjee claimed the biometric cards for MGNREGA would be the first of its kind in the country.
“The government has already floated tenders for the cards,” he informed.
The Minister was replying to a question in the state assembly.
The state government had recently decided to increase to 50 the job days under the scheme from 19 till date in this fiscal.
“We propose that the number of days be increased to 50 within the current financial year,” Mukherjee had said.