MGNREGA workers not paid for months, block highway
Tuesday, 08/03/2016
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/community/mgnrega-workers-not-paid-for-months-block-highway/205999.html
Moga : Unpaid Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme workers blocked the Moga-Kotkapura national highway at Sekha Kalan village in the district today. They alleged the government was delaying the release of their wages. The traffic remained blocked for over two hours, inconveniencing the commuters.
Raising slogans against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal, they alleged local authorities had failed to provide work to thousands of enrolled workers in the district. Under the scheme, it is mandatory for the government to provide a minimum of 100 days of work.
Rajinder Singh, a MGNREGA worker, alleged hundreds of workers had done jobs at Marhi Mustafa, Bambiha Bhai, Sekha Kalan, Sekhan Mehar Singh Wala, Vairoke and nearby villages in the Baghapurana sub-division in the year 2015 for 90 to 120 days, but the district administration had not yet paid them.
Similar complaints were also reported from many villages in the Dharamkot and Nihalsinghwala sub-divisions.
“We have written to the state commission for Scheduled Castes, labour commissioner and the district magistrate several times, but to no avail,” alleged the agitating workers.
The workers warned they would move the high court and block the national highway if the district administration did not pay them within 15 days. A senior official of the district administration said the workers would be paid as soon as the state government released the funds.
