Widespread and intensive campaigning initiated by two civil society organisations, Akhil Bharata Janwadi Mahila Sanghatan (ABJMS) and Pragna Kanoon Salaha Samithi (PKSS), for creating more demand for work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Kalaburagi district is yielding results.
On the one hand, it has been successful in providing work to all job card-holders under the scheme, while on the other, rural lakes and tanks whose storage capacities were drastically reduced thanks to silt accumulating over the years are being taken up for dredging.
In the last three days, three lakes in arid Chincholi taluk, Shadipur Lake, Bonasupur-Linganagar Lake and Chikkaningadahalli Lake, have been taken up for dredging under MGNREGA. All the three lakes are used by people in the surrounding villages for various purposes, including irrigation. Now, over 1,000 people have been employed in the task.
Activists of ABJMS and PKSS have camped in the area for the last fortnight inculcating awareness among rural people about the job scheme and encouraging them to apply for job cards. On the other hand, they are working with local gram panchayats to ensure that people get job cards and work on demand.
In the third stage, they are helping gram panchayat identify the work to be taken up for the larger interest of villagers.
During the inauguration of each big work such as lake dredging, leaders of the organisations and the officials of Panchayat Raj institutions address the workers and tell them about their right to work under the job scheme.
“The State apparatus at various levels is misusing the job scheme meant for providing work to the rural unemployed, for looting public funds. Though there is a great demand for work under the scheme, elected representatives and officials are making attempts to keep the scheme away from the public. With no work at hand, innocent youth in remote rural areas migrate to bigger cities for making a living. It is in the background that we have taken up the campaign,” K. Neela, leader of ABJMS, told The Hindu .
She added that activists of her organisations insisted that the only such works be taken up under the scheme so as to make them helpful in village development.
“Dredging multi-purpose lakes in the rural areas would enhance storage capacity. If the lakes are full of water most of the time in a year, the groundwater table will get automatically recharged helping farmers dependent on groundwater-based irrigation pumpsets,” she said.
