People from rural pockets of coastal Balasore district commute daily to the town and work as masons, labourers at construction sites and get back home by evening.
Even as this has solved labour problem in the construction sector, it dented the Union Government’s flagship programme - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme here. There are not many takers for the employment guarantee scheme here.
Bhagirathi Barik, a labourer of Khantapada, who comes to the town every morning, said he did not see a good earning opportunity in the scheme. “If we work under the scheme we would get ` 126 a day, but if we work at the construction sites we would get ` 200 to 250, sometimes even `300,” he said.
Official sources said only 707 households in 12 blocks of Balasore district have worked for 100 days in 2011-12, even as 3,08,351 households have been provided with the job cards.
Statistics revealed while 32,296 households had approached for employment, as many as 31,799 households were provided jobs by the district administration, but not all for 100 days.
In fact, the district has been able to spend only ` 26,33,89,000 against ` 40,44,73,000 allocated to it under the MGNREGS for the last fiscal.
While the highest 218 households in Basta block have got jobs for 100 days, the lowest in the list is Khaira block where only 14 households were provided employment. So far, in the current financial year, though 2,807 households had approached for jobs, only 49 have been provided employment for 100 days. Though under MGNREGS, a worker not provided work within 15 days of submitting the application, is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance of one-fourth of the wage rate for the first 30 days, the administration has no figure about the allowance paid so far.
Balasore district council AITUC president Jayanta Das said the government should adhere to the Minimum Wages Advisory Committee recommendation of ` 200 a day for unskilled labourers. “Besides the wage, another reason why MGNREGS allocations find few takers is that the government has failed to provide them employment for 100 days,” he pointed out.
The district authorities also admitted the wage provided under the scheme was not acceptable by the people. DRDA Project Director Anjan Kumar Manik said people were not willing to do hard labour for only ` 126 a day. “That’s why we could not spend the allotted amount in the last fiscal. We hope this problem will be sorted out in this financial year,” he added.