The Local Self Government department on Saturday sanctioned ₹24.4 crore, the second instalment of funds for the year, under the Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS) for urban local bodies in the State. The funds will be provided to six Corporations and 56 municipalities which utilised more than 60% of the previously allocated amount.
At the beginning of the current financial year, an amount of ₹29.85 crore was allocated to the urban local bodies, out of which ₹23 crore has been utilised till now. The State government has earmarked ₹150 crore for the AUEGS in the Budget. Minister for Local Self-governments M.B.Rajesh said that the urban employment guarantee scheme, the first of its kind in the country, is a model for the rest of the States. The State government is fully funding the scheme. He said that the workers under the scheme should be employed in waste management efforts too.
In the financial year 2022-23, 41.11 lakh person days of work have been made available in the State as part of the AUEG scheme. He said that the project has been stepped up in a massive way over the past few years as only 3 lakh person days of work were made available in 2015-16. The total Budget has also increased from ₹15 crore to ₹150 crore during this period. The amount that is required in addition to that is allocated from the Budget is being spent from the own funds of the local bodies.
Currently, 2.79 lakh families have registered with the AUEG scheme, out of which 96,000 families regularly depend on the project. The workers have been part of the Subhiksha Keralam project for organic farming, pre-monsoon cleaning, Arogya Jagratha project, water conservation activities, afforestation projects, house construction under the PMAY-LIFE scheme, animal husbandry and waste management. From 2019-20 onwards, dairy farmers have also been made beneficiaries of the project. Those with more than two cows and producing not less than 10 litres of milk per day have been included.
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