As farmers are facing shortage of labourers across the district, farm workers enrolled under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) should be allowed to get involved in the farm activities, pleaded councillors of the District Panchayat Council at its meeting held here recently.
Councillors Kandasamy (Nangavalli ward), and Kalaiarasan (Mecheri ward), raised this issue at the meeting.
They said that farm activities had been badly affected in the district due to scarcity of man power.
The farm produce could not be shifted to the godowns from the fields due to this. The standing crops were also getting withered.
They demanded the District Panchayat Council to adopt a resolution of allowing the workers enrolled under the MNREGS to do the other farm activities. The resolution should be forwarded to the State Government for its nod, they said.
Latha, secretary of the District Panchayat Council, said that both the Centre and the State Government were considering involving the workers enrolled under MNREGS in other farm activities.
In Kerala, the workers employed under MNREGS were already allowed to indulge in farm activities, she said.
