The District Scheduled Caste Wing of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee staged a demonstration here on Tuesday condemning the Government at the Centre and asking it to drop its efforts to scrap Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
S. Sridharan, the party’s SC Wing President in Coimbatore City North, who led the protest, said that the Congress-led Union Government implemented the scheme for the benefit of persons from downtrodden communities across rural India who were unable to have a square meal a day.
He said that the 100 days job guarantee scheme under MGNREGS was a boon for the deprived rural masses and enabled people from the Scheduled Caste community break away from the clutches of hardship that they faced from landholders who hailed from the dominant communities.
“The Congress took efforts to increase the number of days for which the scheme was guaranteeing employment and also increase the salaries of beneficiaries. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre is now trying to dilute the scheme and scrap it,” he said. Mr. Sridharan alleged that in the first phase, the Union Government was trying to scrap the scheme in four states, including Tamil Nadu.
TNCC Vice Presidents M.N. Kandhasamy and R. Radhakrishnan, former Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation R. Venkatachalam and a number of beneficiaries of the MGNREGS also took part in the protest.
Our Tirupur
Staff Reporter writes:
At an agitation organised at Tirupur on Tuesday, P. Gopi, a senior member and former District Congress Committee president, said that the Union Government had already reduced the financial outlay towards the said scheme.
“It means the employment opportunities for the poor people, who are mostly from the scheduled caste community, are getting affected.
“The government by its approach is trying to stop the scheme in the future,” he accused.
The Congress workers wondered why the Union Government which was now planning to write off the bad loans of corporates and medium scale enterprises to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore, could not spend towards a social upliftment scheme like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
‘Congress-led Union Government implemented scheme for downtrodden communities’
‘Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is now trying to dilute the scheme and scrap it’
Congress workers in Tirupur wonder why there are plans to write off bad loans of corporates but no funds for a social upliftment scheme