Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Job scheme a big draw among women

T.V. Sivanandan

Women constitute 49 per cent of those who benefited from NREGS in Gulbarga district

GULBARGA: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which provides employment for a minimum 100 days to the rural poor, has set a new benchmark in bringing about the much-talked-about gender sensitiveness in poverty alleviation programmes.

A study conducted at the national level on the participation of women in works taken up under the NREGS has revealed that more than 40 per cent of the workforce benefited by the programme is women and in some States such as Tamil Nadu, it as high as more than 80 per cent.

The Union Government, while framing the guidelines for the programme, had made it mandatory that at least one third of the workers employed for projects taken up with NREGS funds should be women.

A study conducted by the Gulbarga Zilla Panchayat, which monitors implementation of the programme in the district, reveals that 49 per cent of the workforce benefited by NREGS in the district is women. The percentage of women employed in projects taken up under the NREGS was slightly more than the total population of women in the district.

Chief Executive Officer of the zilla panchayat P.C. Jaffer told The Hindu here on Tuesday that one of the major reasons for women to get attracted to the projects taken up under the NREGS was the “women-friendly atmosphere cre ated at workplaces. There were with babysitters and facilities for informal education of young children and adult education programme for women during their spare time.

Another reason is the equality maintained in the payment of wages to both men and women in the projects taken up under the scheme.

The NREGS also provides for facilities such as safe drinking water, shade for children to take rest, first-aid box and adequate material for emergency treatment of minor injuries and other health hazards. If the number of children below six who accompany workers at any site is five or more, one woman worker will be engaged to look after children and would be paid according to the wage rate.

Old women who are not able to do manual work are generally given the responsibility of taking care of children and paid for that.

And even during the lean season, women get good wages and that too equal amount as men. In the NREGS, the wages do not fluctuate according to the change in season.

It is an undisputed fact that the scheme has the potential to mobilise a large number of women.

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