The sad part of the story is that these poor villagers have willingness to work under MGNREGA but they don’t have the job cards with them to pursue it.
5 years back when MNREGA work – a road work from their village to Jamunda started, they handed over their job cards to a local contractor. Since then, more than 40 villagers have not got their cards back. As a result they are not able to work under MNREGA jobs. They don’t know whether anybody is working in their name.
Out of despair three years back the villagers seized the tractor of the contractor with a demand to return their job cards. The contractor lured the villagers to return the cards and requested them to release the tractor. In good faith the villagers released the tractor but everything went in vain as till today the villagers have not got their cards nor there any communication with the contractor. The best in their capacity these villagers however brought the issue to the notice of the Sarapancha and Secretary (PEO) of the Gram Panchayat several time but all has gone futile.
Seeing the plight of the villagers, our junior coordinator raised the matter to the whole line of government officials like Collector, BDO and Ombudsman. He also arranged media interface and highlighted the whole issue. Ultimately our prayers were heard and hard work was seen. Finally honourable collector sent PD DRDA for investigation. Enquiry was setup with the collection of facts and figures. As an after effect of the enquiry, 41 villagers were issued new Job Cards. Whole process was video documented by the Government.
After the struggle of five years the innocent villagers rightfully got their jobcards and are egarly waiting to work under MGNREGA.
The villagers are very much happy now; they have got back their medium of livelihood i.e. the job card after 5 years. They were engaged in paddy transplantation work and festival; now after Dashara they are ready to work in MGNREGA. RWSS team has already made a survey of their village and the villagers are ready to work construction of latrine in new scheme..
