Kalpetta: The women working under the MGNREGA in Pozhuthana village panchayat in Wayanad are a harried lot as they have not received their wages for the last four months.
Atholi Iyyathu, 70, lives with her daughter-in-law at Pozhuthana after she was abandoned by her son. She told DC at Pinangode, Pozhuthana, that she would not be able to pay her debts borrowed for the treatment of her grandson as she has not received her wages.
She was worried about the upcoming Ramadan month, and asked why the authorities are denying the NREGA benefits to the poor. "My husband left me at an early age and since then I have been living with the children," she said. Her son who got married also left her, abandoning her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. An aged Iyyathu has to look after the entire family. "But I was able to pull on with my earning from the NREGA for the last 15 years," she said.
The same is the fate of Fathima Pulikkal, who was forced to join NREGA as her husband became a chronic patient. Fathima told DC that for women like her, NREGA was a space where they could step in fearlessly. "It provides us freedom financially as well as socially," she said. Life without this is beyond her wildest dreams.
Wayanad is the first district to implement NREGA considering the increasing number of suicides in the agrarian sector. It also ensured round-the-year employment for adivasis. Pozhuthana village panchayat has the highest number of abandoned women in the state.
There are families where even the mother and daughters were abandoned by husbands. The NREGA provided the lone income for many of these aged women and their daughters.
