A woman farm laborer agreed with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s reported opinion that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was waste, at Bandlapalli village in Andhra Pradesh while interacting with AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul descended on the village to participate in a program organized in connection with the 10 th anniversary of the scheme, meant to provide employment in lean season. The scheme was launched from the the village in 2006 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson. The village Bandlapalli was chosen for launch of the program as the Anantapur district witnessed too many suicides of farmers. So, APCC organized the program and arranged an interactive session for Rahul with some beneficiaries of the village.
While Rahul Gandhi asked the questions in English, PCC president N Raghuvira Reddy acted as interpreter. It was not known if Rahul Gandhi understood the meaning of the first answer his question elicited, it did cause great embarrassment to the Congress leaders present in the session.
Rahul wanted to know her view on the Prime Minister’s proposal to scrap the program.
PCC president Raghuvira asked her in Telugu if she would agree with the PM’s view that the program was not useful, The innocent laborer, Akkamma, unable to understand subtle politics in the question, replied in the positive. ” Yes the program is not of great use.”
Raghuvira’s attempt to make her understand the obvious and fall in line with the next question, failed and caused further confusion. When PCC president repeated the question, she said ” the program was waste. “Embarrassed, Raghuvira asked with emphasis ,” is it really not useful to farm laborers?” She said ,“It is useful for agricultural workers up to some extent. But, it is not helpful for farmers.”
Realizing that the session was not going on expected lines, the APCC chief interrupted her from elaborating her view, by asking “Is it not useful for agricultural workers?” Then, the woman beneficiary finally ended her reply by stating that , “The scheme is not that much useful for even farm workers… sir!”
Later, many beneficiaries narrated how the program had brought about transformation in their lives and now there was no need to migrate to far off places in search of work. A beneficiary said he could complete ITI with the money his parents earned from MNREGS program. Another beneficiary said he was able to live with his family because of the employment locally provided by MNREGS. ” Every year, I used to migrate to far off places leaving my wife and children all alone at home. Now , thanks to MNREGS, there is no need to migrate to cities for livelihood. Enough work is available locally. I am able to live with my family,” he said.Later Rahul Gandhi had lunch with farm laborers.
