Ever heard of beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme cleaning the premises of a place of worship? The beneficiaries of MNREGS were seen clearing the thick vegetation all around the temple at Mela Subbrayapuram near Tirunallar last week – much to the pleasant surprise of the locals.
“We thought the women had come to worship, but only later did we understood the purpose of their day-long camp in the temple,” said local villagers. Interestingly, the members were utilising the man-days saved from a different work. “These members were selected for dredging the silt on the supply channel of Pugaiyadikanni Vaikkal in the vicinity, but they completed the work in advance and in the process saved 128 man-days,” said R.Maheswari, Grama Rozgar Sevak, supervising the execution of the work in the Tirunallar north village panchayat.
Hence, these workers, numbering 144, involved themselves in clearing the thick vegetation on the premises of Sri Pasupatheeswarar Temple in the area, she said.
The auctioning of lease for collecting abandoned clothes from the tank of Sri Saneeswarar temple in Tirunallar had its share of humorous moments.
The entire proceedings of the auction held last week in the town was video-recorded amid tight police security.
Just as each bidder quoted his price, one of the temple staff confirmed the quotation as oru thaaramandiranduthaaram through the public address system, creating ripples of laughter. Realising the mistake, he changed the word thaaram to thadavai .
M.BALAGANESSIN
