As the day breaks, farmers march along with the landless workers and women march to the workspot for wage employment in a remote Posulapadu village near Bestavaripeta as the prolonged dry spell has put paid to their hopes of getting any decent returns from their farm this year also.
It is not just the landless poor, for whose benefit the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been launched, but also landlords in the village seek work as the red gram and cotton, which they grow every year, have withered leaving them with nothing to eat, explains a group of villagers putting quick steps to reach their workspot.
A farmer with two acres of land, Jairam Reddy says that earlier only landless labourers used to go for MGNREGS workers. But we too have joined their ranks with all the three bore wells sunk yielding no water, he adds marching to “Patamati Konda” to complete the day's work before the mercury soars.
“I don’t mind working with farm workers after walking 4 km. But at the end of the day’s work, I hardly get ₹60 with the surface hard to break in view of drought,” says another farmer Srinivasulu marching along with his wife with crow bar and other farm implements for work as he cannot get any water even after sinking a bore well 800 ft deep.
It is not worth the trouble as the pay for many of the workers have been kept pending for four months, complains a youth who is planning too move to Hyderabad or Bengaluru looking for greener pastures.
Though not fully satisfied with the selection of works by the officials concerned, he has cleared the files so that the workers are not denied work, explains Village Sarpanch S. Nagaratnam.
Each worker has to dig 1 cubic metre of earth to get his or her quota of ₹196 per day. But they are not able to do the assigned work, explains MGNREGS Field Assistant Boopal Reddy.
4.12 lakh workers get work
On an average, each of the 4.12 lakh workers gets work for 29 days in a year with the average pay being ₹139.49, says District Water Management Agency (DWAMA) Project Director N. Pollappa. As many as 8,900 works had been completed in the district while another 52,420 works were in progress even as efforts were constantly being made to add shelf of works, he says. A total of 1,454 families had completed 100 days of work so far this year.
Taking up the cudgels for the workers, CPI(M)-led Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Workers’ Union District Secretary K.Anjaneyulu wants the government to increase the pay per day to ₹300 in keeping with price rise and provide work for at least 200 days in a year taking into view the unprecedented drought.
Adding to the woes of workers, payments are being made only through Aadhaar-linked savings accounts through under-staffed banks whose employees are ill-equipped to handle a large number of accounts earlier managed through post offices.
