Waiting for hundred days of Rozgar

ANINEWS: Kupwara: Sunday, 10 August 2014.

Sixty-year old Rafeeqa recalls the doomsday when she lost her husband. His sudden demise changed her life forever. Then pregnant with their third child, she had a son, Zakir and daughter, Tabassum to look after with no resources to bank upon.

Zakir dropped out after Class 7th to help his mother make ends meet. Rafeeqa, who hails from Dard Haire village in Kralpora block of Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir, had no other choice but to face the challenges of life to keep her children going. Disheartened, she turned towards the Government schemes and applied for her Below Poverty Line (BPL) card and Job Card in order to avail of schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that she hoped would help her fight poverty.

After applying for work under MGNREGA in 2009, she has, till date, got only two days of work. She believes that insensitivity of the system and an unholy nexus between corrupt officers, politicians and the contactors is what keeps her away from getting access to work. "I live in a kuccha house with water seeping in from the ceiling whenever it rains. I am forced to send my youngest son Mehraj to JK Yateem foundation at Bail-ul Hilal as I am unable to even offer him a decent meal. I am ready to work harder, but where is the work," asks Rafeeqa.

Statistics on the state government website reveal that Jammu and Kashmir has invested over two thousand crore rupees in MGNREGA with seventy eight lakhs being shared by Kupwara district alone, till April 2014. If this money isn't reaching the needy people like Rafeeqa then who is benefitting from it?

The government, during the 4th State Employment Grantee Council meeting held earlier in July under the chairmanship of Minister for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Law Justice and Parliament Affairs, Ali Muhammad Sagar, has increased the wage rate of unskilled workers under MGNREGA from the present 131 rupees a day to 157. It also decided to hike the emoluments of the supporting staff being engaged under the scheme. It was also announced that the labor budget of the State for the year 2014-15 has been approved at 288.20 lakh man-days.

As per Ali Muhammad Sagar, "MGNREGA has been instrumental in changing the rural landscape since its implementation in the State and has registered phenomenal growth in its execution since the last five years and now the onus lies with the officers to ensure its further acceleration and broadening of its scope through convergence."

He clearly is unaware of the woes of people like Rafeeqa who haven't benefited from the scheme till date.

The announcement of hikes in daily wages may well reach the contractors, Panch and Sarpanches on time but there is no streamlined mechanism that allows sharing of such information with the intended beneficiaries. In Rafeeqa's village, no information is being released at Gram Sabhas. Villagers are unaware of the amount of money being accounted on their behalf.

There is no proper documentation that provides names of people who have completed a hundred days of employment as promised under the Act. Ironically, as per section 4(1) b of the RTI Act, such information needs to be proactively disclosed at thelocal level - Panchayat level, and disseminated widely through media, to be painted on walls in the village or to be read out in the Gram Sabha. But nothing has been done so far, at least in Rafeeqa's village.

Ali Muhammad Sagar has directed the officers to prepare comprehensive Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) well in time before the start of the financial year. He said that by doing so, they would be broadening the ambit of this flagship programme so that more people are benefitted from it. "The quarterly review of the implementation of convergence projects under MGNREGA should be done and officers of different departments should work in a synergized and coordinated manner so that the bottlenecks, if any, are removed", he added.

This is not the first time that a minister in charge has assured better implementation of the scheme at the ground level, promising to reach out to the most disadvantaged communities. Time and again, they have failed to meet their claims, distancing themselves from the destitute villagers. Rafeeqa and her fellow villagers have been waiting for several years now to get their hundred days of rozgar (employment), leave alone the increased wage rates. The Charkha Development Communication Network wants the administration to provide them work first and make sure they get the hard earned money without begging for it. It is high time that good intentions translate into action taken on ground. (ANI)