Upgradation of panchayats leaves 9,000 jobless

Wanaparthy: With grama panchayats of madals Pebbair, Kottakota, Atnakur and Amarachinta of Wanaparthy district recently being upgraded into major grama panchayats by merging the surrounding villages, has rendered as many as 9,000 people jobless in all these mandals as they will be denied works under the MGNREG scheme post upgradation.

As per the MGNREG Act, there is a provision in the scheme where only people living in villages with low income levels below 2 lakh will be considered for MGREGS works, however, with the merger of as many as 5-6 villages surrounding each major grama panchayats of Pebbair, Kottakota, Atmakur and Amarachinta mandals, the poor people living in those villages will be now considered to be under urban limits with their income levels automatically hiked up to more than Rs 2 lakh.

Thus this will automatically affect all those poor people living in the villages and will be rendered jobless as they will become ineligible to be considered for the MGNREGS jobs. “There are mandatory provisions in the MGNREGA scheme which states that the scheme cannot be implemented in a municipality.

With the State government’s decision to upgrade these mandal headquarters into major grama panchayats and municipalities, it will impact the poor people living in the villages that are merged with the major GPs,” informed Gopal Nayak, a former ward member from Pebbair mandal. “As many 20 smaller hamlets and some villages surrounding these mandal headquarters are merged and poor people from these villages will now be left jobless as they are ineligible post merger into major GPs,” he added.

In Wanaparthy district, the upgradation decision has affected as many as nine villages with immediate effect. The daily wage workers of these villages used to earn up to Rs 150-200 per day under the MGNREG Scheme, however, with merging them into major GPs they will now be rendered jobless.

As per available statistics, there are 2,151 workers with job cards in Pebbair, while in Kottakota there are 1,491 labourers who are earning a living under the MGNREG scheme.

In Atmakur mandal, there are 1,684 people who will be impacted due to the merger of their villages with the major GP and in Amarachinta as many as 3,758 people earning a living under MGNREGS will be affected due to their villages merged with the urban areas. Not just wage labourers, the field technicians, mates, and technical assistants who are all involved under the MGNREGS programme will also lose their jobs.

“There is nothing new in this, once the villages gets upgraded into the major gramapanchyat or merged with the municipalities, as per the provisions of MGNREGA they will be de-listed from the MGNREG scheme. It is a routine process. Because as income levels increase automatically, the provisions of benefits provided by the government will be withdrawn,” observed Balaraju, Assistant Project Officer.