A three-member team of the Department for International Development (DFID) consisting of Honoria Flanagen from the United Kingdom, Bhuban Anand from Delhi and Supriya Pattnaik from Bhubaneswar office of DFID visited Nuapada district on Wednesday to evaluate the functioning of MGNREG scheme and role of the Odisha Modernising Economy, Government and Administration (OMEGA).
The OMEGA, a State Government reform programme supported by the DFID, United Kingdom, is being operational in the district to support the district administration for effective implementation of the MGNREGS.
The team also wanted to know about the progress in convergence initiatives and transparency in programme implementation through village level social audit and rehabilitation efforts for migrant labourers.
The team visited three villages of the district where they discussed with the migrant workers and other villagers to know about the impact of the scheme and the social audit process. In Ghatimunda village of Kurumpuri Gram Panchayat and Amhera village of Khaira Panchayat, the team saw how the MGNREGS has helped curbing distress migration.
While interacting with the beneficiaries in Amhera village, the team wanted to know about the support they got under the MGNREGS. The beneficiaries most of whom were migrant labourers said that the land development works undertaken in their village have generated employment.
“We had been migrating regularly to Tamil Nadu, but this year we did not do it because we were provided jobs,” said Pinki Bemal, who was rescued from bondage in a brick kiln of Chennai last year along with other 32 labourers by the NGOs Ade-at-Action and International Justice Mission (IJM).
As many as 33 labourers belonging to 15 households of this village had migrated to Chennai in the year 2013. They were not allowed to come back by the brick kiln owner. “We had been working there for more than 12 hours a day without any payment,” said Bikash Hans, one of the released bonded labourers, who earned about `21,000 this year in village by working for more than 150 days under MGNREGS.
Dayasagar Pradhan, representative of Aid-et-Action, informed that all the bonded labourers rescued from the brick kiln have got employment under MGNREGS, which has helped them stay in the village. The average person-day generated through MGNREGS in the village during this year
was 63 days.
“This was only possible due to coordinated efforts of the administration, NGOs and the media,” said DRDA PD Pradip Naik, while elaborating about the process undertaken for generating opportunities for people to work in the village.
The DFID team also reviewed the social audit piloting programme in Sihinamunda village of Jatagarh Panchayat in Komna block. While interacting with the people in a meeting, the team got to know about the causes of delay in wage payment.
The people revealed that there are mainly two reasons of delay — difficulty in opening of bank accounts for transfer of wage and secondly, the mode of calculation of payment. “We dig earth worth `200 to `250 per day, but as the daily wage rate is low and the payment is delayed,” said the labourers. The people demanded increase in wage rate and more days
of works.
The team later interacted with district Collector Jaykumar V and expressed satisfaction on the performance of the programme. The members of the team also expressed their happiness that the district has ranked 3rd in the State on performance of MGNREGS. “We are happy that Nuapada has shed its image of a poor performing district and become one of the best performing districts in past few years,” the team observed.
later in a consultative meeting with the district and block level officials, the team observed that the wage to the labourers should be released as early as possible and alternative livelihood support should be provided in addition to the wage work under the MGNREGS.
They also suggested that each member of a household should be given at least 200 days of employment every year.
The visit of the DFID team was coordinated by the PD, DRDA Naik. OMEGA State unit head Abdul Rahaman, district team leader Ghanashyamm Sahu, district support officers Jitendra Sahu and Satyabrata Padhi and MGNREGS coordinator Hemanta Narayan Sing Deo accompanied the team.