YSR Congress Party on Wednesday said the Congress Government in the State was deflating the NREGS by not meeting to the demands of the striking employees but is providing job guarantee to the party workers by issuing special GOs in the constituencies where elections are due in the next couple of months.
“Nearly 30,000 field staff who monitor the NREGS are on strike from March 24 with very simple demands like job security and the like and the State government has no concern towards them while it has issued GOs for taking up works under special packages where the assembly seats fell vacant with the disqualification of MLAs defying the party whip,” party official spokesperson GattuRamachandraRao told reporters here.
The 30,000 field staff who are recruited to help in implementing the NREGS which in turn will benefit about 20 to 30 lakhs persons. The people who are instrumental in implementing the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme have no job security and the State, which was on the top among the country during YSR term in implementing the national scheme, has lost its credibility and the Centre was forced to cut down the budget allocation even, he said.
The State Congress on the other hand, he said, has issued GOs under special packages and architected it meticulously to see to it that each work do not exceed Rs. 5 lakh, otherwise it has to call for tenders. Since the works are less than the stipulated amount, it can be allotted on nomination basis to provide employment to Congress workers ahead of the by-polls, he said.
Citing a few examples, Gattu said, GOs were issued to take up works at Ramachandrapuram to a tune of Rs. 1.45 cores and at Nasampeta works worth Rs. 4.05 crores were on offer, he said. The special GOs were aimed at appeasing the local before the notification to by-polls which are imminent in the couple of months, he said.
When it comes to providing works to the poor and needy, the State has been very adamant as works were not been properly allocated nor payment made on time to the 1.02 crore workforce. During YSR term, Andhra Pradesh was lauded as a model state across the country for the implementation of the scheme and the social audit.
The Kiran Kumar Reddy government has not been paying minimum wages nor allocating the works regularly, he said adding that the State Government should concede to the demands of the contract workers who were assigned to carry out the Central schemes, he said and expressed solidarity with the employees who are on strike.
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