Odisha Government has geared up its administrative machinery for promoting livelihood and wage employment activities in rural areas in the post-lockdown scenario.Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy has directed Collectors of all districts to “take up more number of employment intensive projects under MGNREGS and Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM)”, said an official press release issued today. Tripathy has also directed different departments, more particularly, the departments of Forest & Environment, Soil Conservation, Horticulture, Sericulture, Fisheries & Animal Resource Departments, Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment and ST & SC Development to take up more and more projects under MGNREGS for enhancing daily labour engagement, the release added. Strategies to be followed for boosting up the number of projects and their implementation figured in the meeting. Chief Secretary Tripathy directed to plan the projects systematically so as to create sustainable community assets in different sectors of rural economy. Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra advised that the DMF districts may give additional daily wage in MGNREGS projects for attracting more labourers. Principal Secretary Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh suggested issuing of new job cards to the willing migrant workers who have returned back from different states due to Covid-19. Collectors were directed to start at least two works in each village by first week of June. It was decided to sanction and implement the MNREGS projects on campaign mode. Further, it was decided to take up the employment intensive projects like farm pond, nutri-garden, and trench around all forest areas, large scale plantation, stop dam, fodder cultivation, horticulture, sericulture, field bonding, and water-shed development along with other asset creation works. The critical gap projects and innovative projects not defined under NAREGA could be taken up in convergence with OLM. Tripathy directed to “fix weekly man-days target for each line department and monitor those closely on weekly basis”. Development Commissioner Mohapatra directed to “plan the projects in such a manner that the scale of person-days generation does not come down during the rainy season”. The meeting decided the strategy for generating 20 lakh man-days per day by May 31, 2020. As of today, around 12 lakh man-day generation has been achieved in the State. The Chief Secretary directed 100% timely payment of the wages. Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra, Additional Chief Secretary Forest & Environment Mona Sharma, Principal Secretary Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh along Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of concerned departments participated in the discussions. Director Special Projects Rajesh Patil placed the updates for discussion.