MGNREGA liabilities worth Rs 1000 cr
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 26: After putting UT administration on legal notice for a fortnight, All Jammu Kashmir Panchayat Conference (AJKPC), the frontline body of elected Panchayat members- on Tuesday announced to go on hunger strike from December 3 against the failure of Government to clear Rs 1,000 crore liabilities under the Centre’s flagship MGNREGA scheme.
“ We had served an ultimatum of 15 days to the UT Government for clearing the mounting liabilities of Rs 1,000 crore under the MGNREGA scheme. The poor labourers, including skilled and unskilled, have not been paid their meagre wages for years together while the people, who helped the department to execute development works under the scheme, have been running from pillar to post to their pending dues,” regretted Anil Sharma, AJKPC president while addressing a press conference here.
Click here to watch video
The AJKPC leader said it was highly unfortunate that the Government has turned insensitive to the miseries of poor labourers and did not pay any heed to our request as well. “We, the elected Panchayat members, are left with no option but to adopt the path of agitation. We have decided to go on hunger strike from December 3 (Tuesday) and it will continue till December 10 (Tuesday) to bring administration out of its slumber. I will lead the hunger strike to be observed 24×7 for 168 hours till December 10,” Sharma said.
AJKPC leader also took a strong exception to the alleged blatant lies of Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj department, Sheetal Nanda during recently-held press meet in Jammu where she had claimed that there was only material liability under MGNREGA.
“The Officer (Secretary) should visit the official site of Ministry of Rural Department, Government of India where the liabilities of skilled and unskilled labourers from J&K are clearly mentioned. The UT Administration has been misleading the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lieutenant Governor of J&K Girish Chandra Murmu by giving a wrong feedback to them,” the AJKPC leader said.
Sharma expressed his dismay that the successive Governments of erstwhile J&K state and now UT administration had been violating the MGNREGA guidelines with regard to payment of wages to workers with impunity.
“The MGNREGA guidelines suggest that workers should be paid their wages within 15 days of the work done but situation is quite grim in J&K where the workers who executed works from 2015 to March 2019 have not been paid their wages till date. This is the worst example of human rights violation,” Sharma alleged.
Prominent among those present included Des Raj Bhagat, Narender Singh, Mulk Raj Sharma, Avtar Singh, Uttam Chand, Pathan Singh, Harjeet Singh and Raj Kumar.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
