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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | 'Employment Day' to widen rural jobs coverage -Basant Kumar Mohanty

'Employment Day' to widen rural jobs coverage -Basant Kumar Mohanty

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published Published on Oct 25, 2013   modified Modified on Oct 25, 2013
-The Telegraph


New Delhi: Panchayat officials often fob off people seeking work under the rural job guarantee scheme, keeping the programme's implementation poor in states such as Bengal and Assam, the Centre believes.

NREGA

Delhi has now asked the states to get their gram panchayat offices to organise a Rozgar Diwas (Employment Day) at every ward every month, where work applications will be submitted and recorded at a public meeting.

Such gatherings will also educate villagers about job opportunities under the scheme, facilitate job card registration, discuss potential projects in the area, and resolve delays in wage payment.

"The main reason that states like Bengal and Uttar Pradesh are lagging behind is the poor capture (registration) of the demand for work in these states," said L.C. Goyal, who took over as Union rural development secretary this month.

"The Rozgar Diwas will be presided over by the elected ward member. People will place their demand for work and for job cards, and mention problems such as delayed wage payments."

Villagers now go individually to their gram panchayat office and apply for work. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the panchayat has to provide work to a job card holder within 15 days of recording his demand, or else pay him an unemployment allowance.

"But the panchayat offices don't record the job applications because, if they do, they become obliged to provide employment," said Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, which works in the area of social security programmes in Rajasthan.

Dey and central government officials said the panchayat officials often fob off the applicants without giving them an acknowledgement slip. Since the demand is not recorded, no unemployment dole is paid, either.

The Rozgar Diwas is a good idea, Dey said, and will bring transparency.

"At a public meeting in a ward, the panchayat officials will not be able to refuse the demands for work or job cards. The people too will feel more empowered to be able to place their demand before a gathering rather than individually at the panchayat office," Dey said.

National Advisory Council member N.C. Saxena, however, was sceptical how much the Rozgar Diwas would help.

"The main problem is delayed wage payment. If people don't get their wages in time, they will not put in a demand for work," he said.

Goyal, however, told The Telegraph that under new rules introduced two months ago, the workers would receive compensation for delayed payment. He blamed delays in payment to delays in measurement of the work done, blaming this in turn on the blocks lacking enough government engineers to do the measuring.

He said the Union ministry had told the states this month to begin hiring engineering diploma holders on contract for this job, if necessary, and train them in measuring work done under the scheme.

Goyal said his ministry had expanded the number of central and state schemes with which projects under the job guarantee scheme can be converged to create durable assets.

Such convergence, till now limited to a few schemes such as toilet-building, is expected to widen the job scheme's coverage.

Giving examples of convergence projects, Goyal said trees could be planted with job scheme funds on either side of roads built under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Sericulture, and godown construction for public distribution system grains, too can come under convergence projects, he added.


The Telegraph, 25 October, 2013, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131025/jsp/nation/story_17492697.jsp#.UmoLHFPcjco


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