Bengaluru:  The Central Government is yet to release Rs.1,050 crore under Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) to the State and it will be urged to release the amount soon, said Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Krishna Byregowda.

He was speaking after holding a meeting of the Zilla Panchayat CEOs and Deputy Secretaries at Vidhana Soudha and said that since the Centre had not released the grants, the State Government itself had funded it.

He said that he would be leaving for Delhi on Monday (today) to meet Union RDPR Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to discuss the issue and added that action plan will be formed to plant saplings in Govt. lands under the EGS.

Open defecation free: There is lot of efforts going on to make the whole State open defecation free and only six to seven districts are left, while all others have been made open defecation free, he said and added that the State will soon be one among the top five in the country. With relation to road works, another Rs.400-500 crore is still expected for the third stage. The Centre has not given sanction for this yet. However, guidelines are already available and the completion time for this is three years, he said.

The target is to set up 17,000 drinking water units in the State out of which 13,962 units have already been set up and the remaining 3,000 units are in varying stages of completion. There is also information that in a few places, the units are not functioning properly. The officials have been told to repair these before July 15. Also, they have been told to prepare an action plan for drinking water units, said Krishne Byregowda.