Andhra Pradesh   

Is the national rural job Act losing its sheen?

K. Venkateshwarlu

BANDLAPALLI (Anantapur dt): Nearly a year after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched a programme operationalising the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) from this sleepy village in Andhra Pradesh, most of the goalposts set in 2006 remain unfulfilled. While launching the programme on February 2, last year in the presence of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Dr. Singh had hailed it as a "landmark in our history in removing poverty from the face of the nation."

Describing the Act as a most significant legislation of our times, ensuring a legal right to work, he said: "The Act gives employment, gives income, gives a livelihood and gives a chance for all to live with self-respect and dignity. It also gives us a chance to create rural infrastructure which can contribute to the growth of rural areas".

A visit to this village now however shows that the gloss attached to the programme seems to be wearing off. At least some of the non- negotiables of the Act such as 100 days of guaranteed employment, creation of productive assets, payment of unemployment allowance, release of wages in time seem to have gone astray. "We got about 40 days of work so far spread over March, April, May but nothing after that," observed Chemala Peddakka of the village. Other laudable features of the Act such as provision of drinking water, sheds for children of the labourers and first aid were nowhere in sight.

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