ANANTAPUR: The Communist Party of India on Friday termed the launching of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) at Bandlapalli a historical event. The party claimed that the scheme had taken shape only with the consistent pressure built by the Left parties on the Congress-led coalition Government at the Centre.

Talking to newspersons here, district secretary of the party M.V. Ramana said ensuring right to work to the poor through a legislation was part of the Common Minimum Programme agreed upon by the Left and the United People's Alliance before forming the coalition Government at the Centre. The Congress had been keeping quiet on the issue for long but the Left parties made it to bring in the legislation, he said.

The scheme was most useful to areas such as Anantapur where drought conditions prevail more often than not. He explained that labourers would get only seasonal farm work for about 100 days a year. The new scheme would provide work for 100 days to a family in a year. He urged the Government to extend the provision of work to 200 days.

However, the Left party criticised the Congress party and the official machinery for denying an opportunity to them to present a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the conditions prevailing in the district. "May be the ruling party and officials know better than us about the intensity of drought conditions, but we could have shared our assessment about it," Mr. Ramana said.

Past visits

They had tried to get permission at the district level and at the Central level too by contacting the PMO. But, nobody was willing to allow even five-minute appointment with the Prime Minister at Bandlapalli, he said. He stated that the denial of permission to a political party to meet the Prime Minister amounted to insulting opposition parties.

If there were security reasons or if there was any threat to the Prime Minister's life why did they had chosen to visit Bandlapalli, the CPI leader sought to know. He recalled that there were no such problems when Indira Gandhi visited the district in 1984, P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1992 and 1994 and A.B. Vajpayee in 1998. Along with other parties, the CPI was also given a chance to represent problems in the district to the PMs, he said.

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