Stating that laborers and their families were starving for want of work with the upgradation of Major Panchayats into Nagara Panchayats, Telangana State CPI secretary Chada Venkat Reddy today appealed to the State government to revive the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Assurance Scheme in the Nagara Panchayats immediately to ensure work for their livelihood.
In a letter to Panchayat Raj Minister Jupally Krishna Rao on Wednesday, the CPI leader stated that Major Panchayats in the State were upgraded into Nagara Panchayats in 2011 and the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Assurance Scheme was scrapped by the State government depriving the work for the laborers. He pointed out that over 70%of people in the newly upgraded Nagara Panchayats were living on agriculture. With the abolition of the Employment Assurance Scheme, the BPL families were trekking three to six kilometer to find work in the neighbouring villages to work as agricultural labour. As the State was reeling under dry spell since the last two years, the downtrodden people were not finding work even in the far-off villages and were being forced to forgo two square meals a day.
“It is a false notion that there will be no farm labourers in the Nagara Panchayats. If a survey is conducted, truth will come out and there will be a lot of scope for executing works like de-silting tanks, ponds, construction of feeder channels and land leveling, laying internal roads and so on and the unorganized labour would find a lot of work to eke out their livelihood”, he stated.
The CPI leader urged the minister to do the needful by making changes in the GOs concerned and revive the National Employment Assurance Scheme for the benefit of starving poor people on humanitarian angle. (NSS)