Kakinada, Jan 21st: The implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) will get a major boost, as the state government issued an order recently, making the horticulture department the nodal agency. Beginning April 1, the department will exclusively take up plantation of horticulture crops in the lands, which were developed and irrigation facilities provided under the NREGS earlier, at a cost of Rs 227 crore in the state.

Ever since the launch of NREGS, it has become a major challenge to the government to utilize the scheme to take up various kinds of works including land development, while providing a minimum of 100 days of work to a household seeking work. After allegations of graft in execution of the works, the mode of implementation of the job scheme witnesses a major change, and district water management agency was made the nodal agency for its implementation with support from the revenue authorities.

Accordingly the horticulture authorities are inspecting the lands to find out the feasibility of raising various species of plants including mango, sapota, coconut, guava, and cashew-nut. They say that their job includes ploughing, making pits, supplying of plants and other materials, and helping the farmers in raising the planted saplings till they start yielding crops.