Telangana sees Low turnout of labourers for NREG works

Hyderabad: The turnout of the labourers for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) works is low in the state. The workers are not willing to take up works with the fear of contacting Coronavirus.

The Rural Development department has started the works though there is general lockdown in the state due to Coronavirus.

The objective is to see that the unemployed of the rural areas get money through the scheme. There are no works in the villages for the past 38 days. The labourers have confined themselves to their homes waiting for relief.

The Centre has released advance amounts to the NREG and exhorted the RD official to begin the works. They have been commenced in about 12,540 Gram Panchayats all over the state.

According to the official reports about 20,000 to 30,000 labourers have been reporting to the works in the past few days.

The total number of workers who have registered is 1.09 crores and as per officials records 10 per cent of them have been reporting to the works on an average every day.

The sources in the department said that the job card holder was not coming forward to take up works with fear of contacting coronavirus. Though officials have been ensuring protection, the workers are not coming forward.

Even though there is less number of cases in the rural areas, the NREG beneficiaries are still feared about contacting the virus and keeping themselves away from the work sites.

However the officials are trying to instill confidence among the workers so that they come forward and take up the works. At several places masks have been supplied to the labourers.

As per the labour budget being approved for the state about 13 crore person days have to be generated in this financial year. According to the targets in April about one crore person days should have been generated.

The works have begun in the third week of the month after the Centre has relaxed the restrictions of lockdown from April 20 and they are continuing at slow pace. So far about 10 lakh person days have been achieved in this month.