“BACK TO VILLAGE” An opportunity to Reform From the Grass root level..

Since the initiative of “ Back to Village” has been taken by the Government under which the selected gazetted officers for every Panchayat have to spent two days including a night in the allocated Panchayats to listen the grievances of people there..

I urge my friends to focus on some points and include them in the list of their grievances…

1. Majority of the NREGA job card holders are not receiving the minimum 100 days guaranteed work as promised under MGNREG act.
2. Delay in payment of wages ,the NERGA act promises wage payments to job card holders on weekly basis and it should not exceed in any case 15 days,but in some cases it took months even a year for a NREGA job card holder to get his wages.
3. Priority must be given to community based works instead of individual works for the maximum social welfare.
4. Awareness camps must be conducted by the Rural Development Department at Panchayat level regarding the various provisions of MGNREGA as majority of the villagers don’t know the provisions of work on Demand, Unemployment Allowance and fixation of time limit for payment of wages.
5. Rural sanitation is the primary job of Rural Development Department in rural areas,it must not be confined to individual latrines only. Rural development department must implement the Solid Liquid Waste management provision’s in towns. It’s the job of municipalities and the same job is assigned to rural development department in rural areas..
6. Works under 13th,14th finance or any other works apart from NREGA must not be allotted on political considerations.Youth must be involved to ensure quality of works and for greater participation in developmental programmes.
7. Panchayat Ghars remain locked most of the year except on certain occasions or official visits. Steps must be taken to ensure they will remain alive throughout the year.i suggest establishment of reading rooms or small libraries in every Panchayat Ghar to infuse life in these dead institutions..
8. If a NREGA job card holder moves an application for work to concerned BDO , he is bound to provide him work within 15 days,if the BDO fails to provide work the job card holder is entitled to unemployment allowance i.e wages without doing any work.
9. Since the main objective of MGNREGA is to create work opportunities for the unskilled labour class,only the labour intensive technique’s are allowded ,use of machinery is prohibited ,only allowed in exceptional cases..
10. NREGA job cards are free ,no fee is to be paid to get a job card under MGNREGA..

As the MGNREGA promises minimum 100 days guaranteed work in a financial year to every job card holder. Mostly it has a ratio of 60:40 that’s 60% labour component and 40% material component.

Suppose a village consists of 200 job card holders,means 200*100= 20000 guaranteed working days ..

Wages per day 180/=

20000*180= 36,00000/ when we add 40% material component to it i,e 14,40000/..

Means a village having 200 NREGA job card holders will receive funds to the tune of 50,40000…50 lakh 40 thousand for their development works under NREGA only just in a single year and when we add to it other works 13th FC ,14th FC ,CDF and other works taken under different schemes it crosses 1 crore.

Is there any single village in the whole Kashmir valley where works worth more than 50 lakh are taken up every year.. Almost  not because the people in villages remain ignorant and the government agencies usually don’t organise awareness camps to make people aware regarding the various provisions of different acts and scheme’s..

Awareness is light when the light comes the darkness has to go. So long the masses are being kept ignorant the exploitation will not come to an end ..the government must come up with sincere efforts to aware the people regarding the various social welfare legislation..

Mudassir Nazir Wani can be reached at wanimudasirnazir@gmail.com