NREGA workers not a homogeneous community

Ongole: The people working under the employment guarantee scheme in the state are facing different issues as per their locality, and the government should understand that they are not a homogeneous community, said the members of various organisations working for the NREGA workers. A team of these organisations are on a mission to visit one lakh workers in 200 mandals of the 13 districts in the State and visited Ongole on Thursday.

Speaking to The Hans India, Chakradhar Buddha, member of NREGA Sangarsh Morcha, said that they started the tour in Visakhapatnam on February 25. He said that 1.76 crore people were registered as wage seekers, but only 87 lakh people were attending works. He added that 23.5 lakh Dalit and tribal workers were using the scheme.

Sharing their observations in the tour in Uttarandhra, Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, and Prakasam district, he said that though the State government was focusing on increasing the NREGA budget, the workers at some places were not receiving more than 50 working days in a year.
He said the workers were not receiving the wages since October 2018 as the Union government has stopped the payments.

The workers in the remote areas were forced to go to banks at distant places to draw their wages after the government shifted the payments disbursal system from the post office to banks. He said the workers in Singarayakonda have asked that what’s the use in providing 150 days of work when they can’t pay them in time.