Uttar Pradesh: Contract MGNREGA workers plan to protest 'around Lucknow' over low wages

Uttar Pradesh: Contract MGNREGA workers plan to protest 'around Lucknow' over low wages

About 45,000 MNREGA workers are planning to stage a ‘besieged Lucknow’ protest on September 1, demanding an increase in the honorarium they receive as wages. He said his honorarium should be improved in the wake of rising inflation.

In Uttar Pradesh, about 45,000 contract workers engaged in the implementation of the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005) scheme are planning to protest on September 1 in "around Lucknow" to increase their wages.

Contract-based MNREGA workers get their wages in the form of honorarium for the implementation of the central government's scheme of 100 days of employment per person in rural India.

Employed servants, technical assistants, accountants and additional program officers - contracted MNREGA workers of four cadres - are demanding an increase in their honorarium, saying they are getting lower wages while prices are rising.

MNREGA workers have long been opposed to their recruitment by service providers and are seeking permanent employment status.

On August 18, contract-based MNREGA workers from Uttar Pradesh staged a protest in Lucknow. Now, they are preparing to besiege the capital on September 1st.

Among the rebel was Vandana Yadav, a 35-year-old employment worker from Unnao, who was holding her baby during the protest. Vandana Yadav said she was ashamed to admit that she had received only Rs 6,000. Even this amount is not paid on time, he said.

She said, “We and our family are facing difficulties due to financial hardship. So far no government has paid attention to the condition of MGNREGA contract workers. During the Covid crisis period, the servants did most of the work. ”

Similarly, 40-year-old Sanjay broke down while telling his story of poverty. He said the Condition has gotten worse and worse. He said he could not give anything to his children after serving bread twice and thought of committing suicide.

Pradeep Kumar, a 37-year-old accounting assistant from Kanpur, said running a family on a given salary was nothing short of a rising cost of living.

“The government wants work when it is needed, but we are paid our due months later. Not a single mask was given by the government in the second wave of coronavirus epidemic, ”he said.

The protest is being led by Sanjay Dixit, a former member of the Employment Guarantee Council, Ministry of Rural Development. Sanjay Dixit alleged said that government officials were not taking the matter to the Chief Minister.

He said the workers were forced to agitate in a Gandhian manner with the spirit of do or die with officials who did not take their issues to the political leadership. "Now, panchayat assistants are being appointed in 58,189 gram panchayats across the state," he said.

he said, "We demand that MGNREGA contract workers in the post of panchayat assistant be paid with the honorarium of both and adjusted," .

Speaking to India Today, Additional Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh said that the Uttar Pradesh state government has made a record payment of Rs 12,800 crore to MGNREGA workers in the financial year 2020-21.

"At the same time, near 34 lakh laborers came to the state in the first wave of the epidemic, out of which 11 lakh were affiliated to MGNREGA.

Officials, however, have no answer to the question of raising the honorarium.

These contracted workers of the state are on the verge of starvation, and are facing the negligence of the government, he said.

MGNREGA contract workers have been regularized by the governments of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently said in the monsoon session of the state assembly that his government would work to increase the honorarium of employment servants.

The CM said the monitoring committees have done a very good job during the coronavirus lockdown, so Anganwadi workers, support workers, Asha (accredited social health worker) workers, Asha Sangini, PRD (Professional Responsibility Departments) go, and employment workers. However, protesters said the matter had not progressed further.

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