VISAKHAPATNAM: The Human Rights Forum (HRF) and LibTech India have expressed serious concern over the deletion of a substantial number of job cards and worker names under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in 2022-23.
According to the report, a staggering 77.9 lakh worker names were deleted, constituting a significant net deletion of 59.6 per cent of the total 1.22 crore workers in AP in 2022-23. A team of three members from the HRF and LibTech India recently visited three villages in Parvathipuram-Manyamdistrict’s -Gummalakshmipuram (Chintalapadu and Balesu) and Kurupam (Durbili) mandals, on August 19 to study the issue. This visit was prompted by a recent report from LibTech, a group of researchers and activists, which highlighted the problem prevalent in Andhra Pradesh and several other states.
HRF Visakhapatnam district president P Raghu revealed that their team had spoken with 30 workers from the three villages, who said, “The reasons given for deletion include unwillingness to work, the deceased, or nonexistent person in the panchayat. We found that only five of these reasons were valid, while the remaining 25 were clear cases of unjustified deletion,” the villagers added.