Hyderabad: Uttam wants government to restore services of NREG field assistants

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday demanded that the State government restore the services of 7,500 Field Assistants who work for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) in view of coronavirus outbreak.

In an open letter to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the MGNREGA Field Assistants went on strike following imposition of new conditions for renewal of their contracts as per Circular No 4779/2020.

As per the circular, it was proposed that the contracts of those Field Assistants would not be renewed who fail to meet the targets.

However, in view of situation that emerged due to coronavirus, the Field Assistants have offered to call off the strike unconditionally to rejoin duties.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the ongoing lockdown to prevent spread of coronavirus had a negative impact on the labourers in rural areas and the State government need to undertake lot of works under MGNREGA to provide them work as well as increase their income as per the package announced recently by the Centre as a part of the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).

Therefore, the TPCC chief urged the Chief Minister to restore the services of 7,500 Field Assistants and utilise their services to begin the MGNREGA works in rural areas.