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Main » 2010»April»6 » No job cards for inactive holders: Govt
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No job cards for inactive holders: Govt
ApnaBundelkhand.com, Lucknow: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MNREGS) was launched to give villagers a chance to earn a living in their own villages for at least 100 days. But a survey conducted by the district rural development authorities (DRDA) across the seven districts of Bundelkhand has revealed that a large percentage of these job card holders had never demanded work.
The MNREGS is a demand-based scheme, where a job card holder gives an application to the gram pradhan or the panchayat secretary, demanding work under the scheme. According to official sources, since reports of job card holders not demanding any work began pouring in, the state government decided to conduct a statewide survey and make a list of those job card holders who did not demand work between December 2008 and February 2010.
Commissioner (MNREGS) Sanjeev Kumar said, "The scheme primarily provides work on demand. The survey will help us identify people who got their job cards made but do not work.” He said such job cards will be cancelled and the DRDAs will be asked to issue an equal number of job cards to families that have been left out and are ready to work.
"This way, even the labour force in the village will not reduce and people who actually need it will become beneficiaries,” said Kumar.
In the seven districts of Bundelkhand, from where figures were available, the percentage of people who did not work was very high. For example, in Chitrakoot district, of the 1,01,627 job card holders, only 49,031 (48 per cent) demanded and were given work in the last one year.
Similarly, in Lalitpur district, of the 1,27,073 job card holders, 57,226 did not demand work at all. Jhansi fared no better. Here, of the total 1,31,753 job card holders, 51,758 (39.28 per cent) did not demand work.
The DRDAs found that a large number of such job card holders belonged to families of pradhans or other influential people.
"Some of these job card holders are from well-off families, who will never work in road-laying or canal digging jobs,” said G P Gautam, project director, DRDA Jhansi.
"This can give rise to corrupt practices, fake accounts can be opened in their names and fake entries made in the muster rolls,” added Gautam.
