Around 20000 rural unemployed are expected to benefit from National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) that came into effect from April 1. The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) which is a nodal agency to implement this scheme has worked out a plan by which at least 100 unemployed in every panchayat area will get employment under the scheme. There are 189 village panchayats but DRDA has received proposals from just nine panchayats, told Gurudas Pilarnkar, Project Director who conducted extensive awareness cam-paign for panchayat members a few months before the scheme was launched. It is duty of a panchayat member to create awareness about the scheme and help the unemployed in his/her ward to get benefit from the employment opportunity, he added. In fact, big responsibility lies on panchayat members who need to identify unemployed, and promote their case. Each person employed will be paid wages of Rs 110 per day for working for a project that will be undertaken by a village panchayat on approval of DRDA. The DRDA has proposed to the government to increase daily wages to Rs 140 to encourage Goans to avail of this scheme who are known to shun manual work. While most manual labourers working in Goa today are from outside, local get a higher daily wage. DRDA is aware of this trend however trying its best to encourage Goans in need of employment to take benefit of the scheme. MODEL VILLAGE: There are still areas in the State where people are happy to do manual jobs provided they are paid reasonably, said Pilarnkar who has selected Narva village in Bicholim to develop as