Tripura Government has fixed MGNREGA wages at Rs 204, however, MNREGA workers of a village under Ambassa alleged that they were receiving less than the announced rate. Irked at cut in wage rate, people of Der Mile area hit the street today and staged a road blockade along Ambassa-Gandachhera road bringing vehicular movement to a grinding halt. Later, road blockade was withdrawn after intervention of MP Rebati Tripura.
“The road blockade brought the trans-subdivision movement to a standstill and also asked the administration to resolve their issues immediately”. Agitating villagers alleged, even as the state government has fixed the MGNREGA wages at RS 204, the local village committees are not paying the workers in full amount. “In some cases they much less than the Rs 204 amount – often payout is as less as Rs 130”, alleged one MNREGA worker.
Some people even raised allegations against the local level officials for not distributing mandays in a transparent manner and are reducing wage rate without any plausible explanations.
“We are not new comer in MNREGA works. We are doing this for years. It never happened like this,” a MNREGA worker alleged.
Venting anger against the concerned local authority, villagers said, “We are dealing with multi-pronged problems, with the onset of this pandemic all our income avenues have shrunk and very little sources are left. In this situation, MGNREGA comes as a big help. However if we do not get wage as announced by the Government, our economic situation will further worsen”.
For many hours, the road remained blocked. Huge queues of vehicles both buses and small carriers stalled in the roadside counting hours to get the traffic cleared. Many people could not attend offices and meet up other essential commitments due to the unprecedented road blockade.
However, MP Rebati Tripura’s intervention later resolved the problem and the blockade was lifted. The MP personally assured the agitators that he would look into the matter and would surely address if there were any irregularities pertaining to the MGNREGA payouts.
