HYDERABAD: In a development which would probably affect the livelihood of 7,400 Chenchus -- the primitive tribals living in the Nallamala forest spread across Nagarkurnool and Nalgonda districts -- the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)- Special Chenchu Project, which was started in 2009 to provide livelihood and address malnutrition in the vulnerable community, has been discontinued this year.
The scheme was started under the ITDA Srisailam, covering five districts of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Initially, the wage seekers going for NREGs works used to be provided 'food baskets' in return for work done.
Since 2010, financial payment was initiated, by giving them an advance of Rs 1,000 before carrying out the works, so that they could purchase food for survival, as they are still known to be malnourished, with their average lifespan being 40-45 years.
Between 2015 and 2017, payment for works used to be done through the village organisers and after the direct benefit transfer system was introduced in 2018, wages were being deposited directly into their bank accounts.
"Chenchus have been known as migrant labourers who travel to far off places in search of work annually. Due to this scheme, migration has considerably come down and Chenchus have been staying in their habitations," said Bala Guruvaiah, sarpanch of Appapur Chenchu Penta, which is a gram panchayat in Lingal mandal of Nagarkurnool district.
Under the special project, each of the wage seekers in a household was assured 180 man-days of work per year, unlike the regular NREGS scheme, where a job card in a family assures 100 man-days to the entire family.
In addition to that, considering their malnourished condition, 30 per cent of allowance in work used to be given to them, which means even if they completed 70 per cent of work, they used to be paid for full work done.
Chenchus have built mud roads, de-silting of minor irrigation tanks, boundary trenches and several works which benefited their habitat and their community through the scheme for all these years. By the latest move, they will lose all these special provisions.
On the implementation front, officials have been expressing concerns over the implementation of the new scheme, as the methodology being adopted for the scheme's transition is not yet clear. Earlier there were 11 junior technical assistants hired from within the community to implement the works. It remains unclear what would be their role in the near future.
G Ashok, Ex-Officio Project Officer, Additional DPC, MGNREGS, ITDA (PTG- Chenchu), Mannanur, has already written to the Commissioner, Rural Development Department currently in-charge of NREGS, that the distance between each Chenchu penta would pose huge hurdles in terms of downloading D-Muster, daily attendance, daily measurements, lack of internet connectivity in the forest, which would be impossible to cover the allotted habitations by the junior technical assistants every day.
At present, there are 24 staff members working under the special project to cover 97 habitations with a minimum distance of 20 km to a maximum two-way distance of 120 km from their respective field offices, as many of these habitations are located deep inside the forests.
There are other technical issues concerning the transition from the special Chenchu project to regular NREGS works, which Chenchu organisations have been opposing, as it would affect their livelihood.