A large number of women and girls were seen carrying head loads of mud, dug up from mounds of earth by male workers, at an uneven site, just beside the Araku main road at Chilakalagedda village of Anantagiri mandal in Alluri Sitharama Raju district on Monday (April 15).
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Though it was around 8.30 a.m., the summer sun was already shining bright and it was quite hot. The women were dumping the soil in the low reaches of the large site as part of levelling of the land.
The women and a few men were given the work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). “We have started work at this site only today (Monday). As many as 100 workers are engaged at this site. The workers enrolled are given job cards and their daily wages are credited to their bank accounts,” Labudu Barika Vijay Kumar, a Mate (site supervisor) told The Hindu.
The MNREGA, launched in 2006, provides work to unskilled persons in rural areas for a minimum of 100 days in a year. “We have to work from 6 a.m. to 10.45 a.m. and again from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. during summer. In the past, workers used to get ₹200, a day. Now, we hear that the rates have been increased recently,” says Vijay Kumar, who also works at the site apart from supervising the work of others.
There are no shade giving trees around the site, and the workers have to toil in the hot sun. Water facility has also not been provided to the workers at the site. “In the past, tents and drinking water used to be provided at the work spot but now they have not provided the same,” said a worker.