NREGA to cover 130 more districts

Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh today announced in Parliament the names of 113 districts that are to be covered in the second phase of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) programme.

The number excludes the 17 districts in Uttar Pradesh whose names will be announced later due to the election code operational in the state for the Assembly polls.

Stating that the Act would be applicable to the whole of the territory to which it extends within a period of five years from the date of enactment of the Act (September 2005), Singh stated that out of the 130 additional districts, 50 were those covered under the Backward Regions' Grant Fund (BRGF), 15 had incidence of farmers' suicides and 5 were the newly created districts that were left out of the National Food For Work Programme /Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana /BRGF. Four districts have been taken up as 'Learning Impact' districts.

In addition to this, 34 districts have been selected from the Planning Commission Ranking of Backwardness, while 22 districts are included in order to make an equitable distribution, the minister told Parliament.

The additional districts to be included under NREGA's second phase are 6 in Andhra Pradesh, 2 in Arunachal Pradesh, 6 in Assam, 15 in Bihar, 12 in Chhattisgarh, 3 in Gujarat, 2 in Haryana, 2 in Himachal Pradesh, 2 in Jammu and Kashmir, 2 in Jharkhand, 6 in Karnataka, 2 in Kerala, 13 in Madhya Pradesh, 6 in Maharashtra, 2 in Manipur, 3 in Meghalaya, 3 (2), 2 in Mizoram, 4 in Nagaland, 5 in Orissa, 3 in Punjab, 6 in Rajasthan, 2 in Sikkim, 2 in Tripura, 4 in Tamil Nadu, 2 in Uttarakhand and 7 in West Bengal.