NREGA: Non existent in Uttar Pradesh

I wrote this in March but didn't have some information then so here is the post preceding this one.


I went to meet the Pradhan of Garhera again today. He told me that the ones with the job cards had left. There was one man there who claimed to have a job card.

Me: So you have a job card?

Him: Yes madam

Me: What work have you got in 2010.

Him:Whatever the Pradhan asks me to do .

Me: I mean to ask what projects under the NREGA scheme meant to improve infrastructure for the village have you worked for?

Him:Made toilets and other projects

Me:what other projects?

Him:Woheee madam

I asked him to show me his job card. He said his house was far away. I said that we had a car and we would take him in our car. Then he said he was working for the Pradhan fixing things in his house.

There is no budget for the NREGA for this village according to the Pradhan.Also, remember no one wants a job card because everyone is high caste. According to this 20 households in Garhara are registered job card holders.In the year 2008-09, the budget allocated was 1,72,000 Rupees out of which 50,000 Rupees is recorded as officially having been spent. 72953 people in the Bulandhahr district are registered under NREGA according to www.nrega.nic.in. In 2008-09 , 5000 Rupees was spent on paying five workers for ten days of work each .

He however showed me one example of a job card in which no entry was made for any work done or money received supposedly because the man who owned the job card did not want to open a bank account.

We are the purest of them all

 

 

We were driving to Garhera, described as the worst village in the surrounding areas. Mr D Singh (DS) who is driving the car tells me that all one caste villages tend to be filthy

because no one is less equal to another.

I ask him what he means. He tells me that Garhera is a village where only Thakurs live. No one wants to stoop down to the level of cleaning the streets.

Enter their houses and be assured that everything is spic and span.Almost everyone in the village owns land- something unique in this area.

Yet, on the outside, the squalor is comparable to that of an urban slum, to the worst of slums.

 

I was to meet the Pradhan.He was sleeping on a charpoy, barechested, wearing only a towel when I arrived.He woke up and ordered for chai .

I made lots of polite conversation and finally asked him about NREGA and about how many people had job cards. He said that this is a high caste village and  no one needed a job card here. I asked him what projects were in progress under the scheme.He said pond construction and the making of pucca structures for the borewells was on the cards.

 

I asked him if I could see these. He said that it was hard to get labourers in the village again emphasizing that high caste people didn't do such work.

 

 

It occurred to me  that in this village of filth , of black stinking water lining every street with houses with grand macho gates , a sense of greatness ran in the blood of its citizen any evidence of which was absent in any tangible form. The ancient delusion of caste superiority desecrated the streets. (Do I sound condescending, sarcastic, angry..? I think I am.Angry.)

 

One of the Pradhan's points taken though. Villages with a high SC population get more funds and privileges under Mayavati's government.

 

 

All the village Pradhans had to contribute 5000 Rupees each for Mayavati's birthday celebrations and 1000 Rupees from the village's ration account share.

 

Let's think about the structures we create man coz if they suck, it's gonna take generations to get rid of them.!That's just how profound I can be right now..

 

 

 

The national livelihood guarantee Scam.

9 out of every ten persons I ask about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act have never heard of it. I have extensively toured about five villages now. So far , I have seen one advertisement for it. And I met one man who has heard of it.

Pota is a village that is a five hour ride from where our pals Manmohan, Chidu and the rest have their office. X used to work as a tailor in a garment factory in Delhi making a small salary he sent home to his three daughters and two sons. The factory shut down after heavy losses incurred during the recession because of a cut in export orders. He says ‘’ Ofcourse I have heard of it but the rich people have more money than me and so more power. How can I get a job card?’’

That is the exact translation of what he said.

Apparently, people who are close to the Pradhan get themselves job cards and use these cards to get employment for their SERVANTS who slave away only to have their income taken by their rich masters. Also , he said that the Pradhan was an illiterate woman (‘’bichari , woh unpad hain’’) who had benefited from the reservation for women – again a well intentioned act. However her husband and all the men her husband was scared of made all the important decisions.
Do we notice how one string of corruption carefully winds itself around another till all we can see is
a tangled impenetrable mess of strings?
He said it is no point questioning this system and went on to say that in the government school the parents had already been told that half the food rations meant to be used for the mid day meal program were sold and that the parents should not complain.