Job card holders sans work for 1 year

Charanjit Singh Teja

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 26

The workers under the much hyped scheme of the UPA regime — the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) —are feeling ignored ever since the Modi government has come to power.

They alleged that panchayats have not assigned them any work for the past one year. Irked job card holders under MGNREGA are protesting in various blocks of the district against the non-availability of work for the past one year. Today, they gheraoed the office of the Block Development Panchayat Officer (BDPO) at Pakhowal block.

The protest was organised under Sawraj Abhiyan, where workers alleged that the sarpanchs don’t call them for any development work in villages. Moreover, when they approach various sarpanchs, they deny them work.

Not only this, most of the workers in the block were without work for the past two years. The BDPO office, too, has not paid their pending amount so far.

Parkas Kaur, a job card holder, said: “I got my job card two years ago but the sarpanch did not call me for any work. I paid several visits to get work but I am still unemployed.”

Leader of Sawraj Abhiyan, Tarsem Jodhan, said: “As per the guidelines of MGNREGA, everyone can apply for a job card, but in villages, the sarpanch issues a job card to only a few labourers. If one doesn’t get work even after submitting the application, the government has to pay unemployment allowance to them. But in Punjab, no one is getting unemployment allowance.”

Senior leader of Sawraj Abhiyan, Santhok Singh Aujla, said: “It is sad that the needy are not being able to benefit from this Act due to a few officials. There are only a few beneficiaries under this scheme. We have started this campaign to educate workers for their rights under MGNREGA. We suspect there is a major embezzlement of funds under this scheme.”

Balbir Singh, BDPO at Pakhowal block, said: “I am not responsible for the delay in transferring funds. Gram sewaks are responsible for all errors. We are facing a major staff crunch. The government is not sending funds. Earlier, whenever we received funds from the government, we used to release it to the workers. Now, the funds are directly transferred to their bank accounts.”