Mangaluru (The Hindu): Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat has decided to build 2,300 open wells during the current financial year under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) programme, according to N.R. Umesh, Deputy Secretary of the panchayat.

At a meeting called by Nalin Kumar Kateel, Member of Parliament, here on Tuesday he said that the panchayat has built 14,915 open wells in the district in the last four years under the programme.

The Deputy Secretary said that the panchayat has planned to re-charge 1,000 borewells and build 663 rainwater harvesting structures in the current financial year under the same programme.

He said that 8,892 hectares have come under horticulture in the district in the last four years under MGNREGA.

M.R. Ravi, Chief Executive Officer of the panchayat, said that the panchayat was maintaining the technical and social profile of all small vented dams being built in the district under MGNREGA programme now. Of the 1,000 such vented dams which would be built in the current fiscal, 149 dams are ready now.

Giving an example of how the vented dams were helping people, he said that with a new dam being built at Enmur, farmers can grow two paddy crops now instead of only one earlier.

The gram panchayats are also forming users committees for dams being built at a maximum cost of ? 5 lakh, he said.

An official from the South Western Railway told the meeting that the Railways would improve the Subrahmanya Road Station, mainly the platforms, at a cost of ? 1 crore.

Mr. Kateel asked the National Highways Authority of India to remove all illegal bus stops and shelters and other structures in is limits along the highways.