Around 500 daily wage labourers registered under the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district have alleged irregularities in the payment of their wages for nearly 20 months, to the tune of Rs 20 lakh. The incident came to light from Chirutapudi gram panchayat of Ambajipeta mandal in East Godavari district. After complaints from the workers, Human Rights Forum (HRF) conducted a fact-finding visit to the village earlier this week.
HRF district president Muthyala Srinivas Rao told TNM, "Around 500 daily wage workers are suffering as they are not getting wages for work that they have done."
According to HRF, the workers claimed that their complaints were not addressed despite multiple appeals to concerned authorities at the district level. The HRF found fault with the field level staff responsible to implement the scheme, and said that they failed to issue job cards on time and did not record the work done by the labourers efficiently.
Rao said, "Besides not entering the work into a muster roll, the field level staff have failed to issue jobs cards on time and negligence in conducting inspections by mandal level officers has led to these irregularities."
Rao also said that though higher officials have ordered for an enquiry into the matter, the mandal level officials are conducting them ineffectively.
The HRF demanded immediate disbursal of the pending wages to the workers, while stating that they will seek legal remedy.
Chakradhar Bhuddha, an activist from LibTech India, a collective of engineers, social workers and social scientists working for social audits and accountability, transparency in rural public services delivery, alleged that the negligence and irregularities in the execution of NREGA resulted in the problems.
“Around 500 labourers who have no other source of income are not getting the wages for the work they have done.
A special social audit should be done by NREGA state unit authorities to sort this out and expose the facts of the issue and disburse their wages," Chakradhar said.
Meanwhile district authorities are said to be looking into the allegations of irregularities and negligence on the part of the NREGA staff.
When TNM contacted Project Director (PD) District Water Management Authority (DWMA), the official said that the government had taken notice of the incident and an enquiry is underway.