Elderly women hit hard in rural areas

Kochi: The labourers enrolled into the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the state are a harried lot with the number of labour days going down from the stipulated 100 days and piling up of wage arrears to the workers in the state to crores of rupees.

One of the beneficiaries of the scheme Leelamma Ravi of Perumbavoor said that wages for the past six to seven months are pending for the workers. “Twenty five percent of the wages comes from through the panchayat while the rest is allotted by the Central Government. The workers engage in some of the difficult tasks like removing mini jungles on the banks of rivers and canals and making places clean. Many who undertake the work are old. So it is a gross injustice to them denying wages. On the part of the state government, it is denying them ration while converting them from BPL to APL,” said Leelamma.

Siba Tajudeen, a native of Kanjiramattom in Amballur panchayat, said that she used to get 100 days work in the previous years. “This year I have got only 20 days and wages are pending. Some of the panchayats have a due of Rs 60 lakhs to workers. The hardest hit are poor old woman. They don’t have any other source of income. Though we have conducted agitations before the panchayat office to Collectorate to the Secretariat, the State Assembly is yet to pass a unanimous resolution urging the Central Government to implement the scheme in letter and spirit and disburse the arrears. The current trend to kill the scheme seems to be a political move also,” she said.

INTUC Ernakulam district president K.K. Ibrahim Kutty said that the key reason for the failure of the scheme is the inability of the State Government to make budgetary allocation for 25 percent of the  scheme. “The budgetary allocation has not come this time. There are a total of 2 lakh beneficiaries of the scheme in Ernakulam district. However, only 82,558 persons were given job last year. The state government should take steps to rejuvenate the scheme,” he said.

“The workers get a meagre Rs 240 per day for 100 days and when even this is denied their life becomes miserable rural areas,” said INTUC secretary Simon Edappally.