Ongole: Prospects of going hungry spook labourers

Ongole: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers, tiffin centre owners, pushcart hawkers and other daily wage workers started to worry about their livelihood in an atmosphere of panic and shutdowns triggered by a coronavirus.

On an average, about 15 lakh people in the state work under MGNREG scheme in a day. Due to the increase in daily temperatures and related ill-health, about 10 per cent of them drop out of work. On March 18 and 19, 12.5 lakh and 12.8 lakh people respectively worked in the NREGS scheme in small groups across the state.

These workers get Rs 211 and a little incentive, if any, as the daily wage for sweating in the scorching sun. T Ramana, a daily wage worker from Mundlamuru mandal in Prakasam district, said that they were not worried about the coronavirus or any other disease but about the hunger. He said that the government didn't provide any masks or protective gear as part of the control of the pandemic.

Ramana and other workers in his group questioned when the people were dying due to the virus, why the government is not considering them as humans at all. They demanded the Union government select March 20 or 21 as the last day of work and issue the wages up to March 31 as the allowance to all who worked on the last day.

Madhu, a tea and tiffin centre operator in Zachariah Hospital road in Ongole, said that the number of people coming to him for food and tea had drastically dropped for the last one week. He said that the people were avoiding the outside food due to the coronavirus and this trend might continue until normalcy is achieved.

He said that he would earn about Rs 1,000 daily on a normal day, but his income fell below Rs 400 now and he was expecting it to come down further in the coming days.

P V Narayanamma of Peddaraveedu mandal, a pushcart vegetable vendor, said that a local nurse told her to not go out up to March 31, and use the pension and ration being offered by the government for survival. She questioned how many days the ration and pension would help a family of four. "Whatever be the situation, I will continue to sell vegetable, even if the government orders shoot at sight. When death is inevitable, let that be not of hunger," she said.

Prakasam district DWMA (District Water Management Agency) project director K Seenareddy told The Hans India that around 1.45 lakh people worked on Friday in the MGNREG scheme.

"There are about 4.19 lakh families registered for the work under the scheme, but only 40,000 completed the guaranteed 100 days of work this year. The remaining people will lose any balance days in the 100 after March 31 as fresh year starts on April 1," he said.

Seenareddy said that they were asked to create awareness on the coronavirus among the workers, but not asked to provide any compensation or allowance to them by stopping the works. 

PV Narayanamma of Peddaraveedu mandal