CPM stages protest against bid to dilute MNREGs

Vijayawada: Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member B V Raghavulu here on Wednesday cautioned the Central government against diluting the norms of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Raghavulu led the party's protest at the sub-collectorate here, condemning the moves by the Centre to make changes in the MNREGs which proved to be a boon for the poor.

Raghavulu said the MNREGS was introduced under the pressure by the Left parties to protect the rights of the poor, particularly the daily wage earners. The scheme was designed to provide 100 days of assured employment to the workers, he said. He found fault with the government to link the MNREGS with agriculture. He said the scheme was introduced to fill the gap created by the agriculture sector in providing wages to the labourers. The agriculture can just provide 180 to 200 days work in a year. The scheme was introduced to add another 100 days of assured work.

The CPI-M leader further said the government had proposed to change the labour-material ratio for the works taken up in the scheme and the labour component was proposed to be brought down to 40 per cent and that would hit the wages for the labour as 60 per cent of the total budget would go for the material component. The CPI-M leaders R Raghu, Ch Baburao and others were present at the protest.