MGNREGS RALLIES YIELD ENCOURAGING RESULTS IN BALANGIR Thursday, 06 June 2013 | SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

MGNREGS RALLIES YIELD ENCOURAGING RESULTS IN BALANGIR

Thursday, 06 June 2013 | SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which is one of the most popular flagship programmes of the UPA Government, aims at the upliftment of the poor and eradication of poverty.

It not only guarantees wage employment as a constitutionally guaranteed right, but also has provided enough space for community to plan, monitor and audit all projects through Gram Sabha.

However, lack of public awareness, poor participation in the Gram Sabha and social audit are the major reasons for which beneficiaries are not getting the desired benefits. 

The usual practice for calling Gram Sabha is pasting a small notice here and there on a village wall which goes either unnoticed or gets torn up within a few hours of pasting.

Even if the notice is there, the labour class, which is the main stakeholder, is mostly illiterate and hence just ignores its presence.

Most of the households think attending Gram Sabha is a waste of time. Many households feel that Gram Sabha is dominated by the powerful people and they are not allowed to lodge any complaint, pointed out researcher Dr Surendra Pattanik. 

With a view to promote participatory planning, monitoring and collective vigilance by the community, in MGNREGS work, we trained 20 youth within three months period and Shramik Shakti Sanghas were formed in village and block level.

The panchayat level labour leaders were trained on how

to act on various issues. Awareness programmes were conducted through Padayatra cycle rally, besides a block level interface of the Shramika leaders with PRI members, he said. 

To ensure effective participation of households in the Gram Sabha, the Sramik Shakti Sangh took out a cycle rally in Khaira gram panchayat of Bongomunda block covering all villages and hamlets. It was followed by a village level meeting encouraging people to open up and put forward their grievances. In the village meeting, the time, date and venue for

Gram Sabha was announced and the villagers were informed again through announcement of   traditional drum beating, said Dr SK Pattnaik of Vikalpa.

Braving scorching sun, a large number of people attended the Gram Sabha and raised their voice in Khaira gram panchayat. It was held under a mangrove on May 15 last.

Out of 38 people who spoke out in the Gram Sabha, 29 are from the labour class of which 23 have never attended any Gram Sabha earlier and six people, who have attended Gramsabha spoke.

Most surprisingly, of the active participants, who spoke out, about 40 per cent were woman. Even women participants participated actively and raised issues like delay in wage payments and delay in measurement.

In the Gram Sabha, the villagers raised the issue of inordinate delay in measurement and wage payment up to 5 months in Telipadar, Lukapada,  Pipalmunda and Dumerpada, besides undue delays in initiation of NREGA work, Dr Pattnaik said further.

The Gramsabha is one of the most powerful elements in implementation of MGNREGS and we are trying to strengthen it so that the discrepancy would be checked and transparency would be maintained, besides providing benefitsto poor people, Dr Pattnaik added.