Centre destroying soul of rural job scheme: Congress

Hyderabad: AICC secretary Sachin Sawant, along with former MP V Hanumantha Rao and Hyderabad district Congress president Syed Khalid Saifullah, launched the ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' rally from Charminar on Saturday. Speaking on the occasion, they said that the Narendra Modi-led govt at the Centre was destroying the soul of the rural job scheme.They said the legal right to work, which empowered every rural family to demand employment, was being reduced to a favour controlled by the Centre, calling this unacceptable in a democracy. Sawant raised concerns about wage insecurity under the new system. "Earlier, families could rely on minimum wages and seek work throughout the year. Now, with arbitrary wage-setting and no work during the harvest season, rural labourers are being forced into low-paid and insecure jobs," he said. Syed Khalid Saifullah warned of the impact on grassroots governance. "The strength of MGNREGA was its decentralised approach through gram panchayats. Today, those powers are being taken away and handed over to contractors. Local workers are being reduced to cheap labour without rights or representation," he stated. He added that forcing state govts to bear 40% of wage costs would discourage implementation, calling it a direct attack on the poor, especially women and SC/ST families who depend on the scheme for survival.Calling MGNREGA a ‘lifeline' for rural India, the Congress leaders also passed a resolution in support of the scheme. They said it had generated over 180 crore person-days of work and created nearly 10 crore public assets over the past two decades, while empowering gram panchayats through local planning. "During the Covid-19 pandemic, MGNREGA became the backbone of the rural economy. It is now under threat, and we must act," Khalid Saifullah said.