West Bengal to introduce biometric cards for NREGA beneficiaries

KOLKATA: The West Bengal government will introduce biometric job cards to the NREGA beneficiaries to facilitate early payment for jobs done by them, Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said on Wednesday .

Replying to questions in the Assembly, Mukherjee said the government has already floated the tender for the biometric cards. The cards would enable the beneficiaries to get their payments on a daily basis instead of the long waiting period stretching often upto a month, he said.

While upto 11 days' job was given to beneficiaries in April, 2011 when the Left Front was in power, it was 28 days under the present government. The state government aimed to provide upto 50 days' job under the NREGA, the minister said.

He later told newsmen outside the House that a number of gram panchayats in Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24-Parganas and Howrah were not functioning because of political reasons and the government was diverting funds meant for them to the panchayats which were functioning properly.

To a querry, he said that between July, 2011 to January, 2012, the government had been able to get 594.68 km of rural roads metalled from the 16,276.85 km approved for the purpose.

Mukherjee expressed hope that metalling of the remaining stretch would be completed within the 2012-13 financial year.