Sonia's dream job project fails in her constituency

Agona (Rae Bareilly): The pocket borough of the Gandhi family, Rae Bareilly, was supposed to be the star constituency of the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).

But CNN-IBN has found that almost half of the villagers of Agona, Tendua and Mubarakpur Mukhotia do not have job cards, without which they have no employment proof.

According to the villagers, their job cards have been taken by the village pradhan. “My job card is with the pradhan. I have asked for it again and again. I don't know why he does not give it to me,” a daily wager at Attakpurva, Babu Khan said.

While another daily wageworker Shyam Kali complained, “When I asked he said what do you want to do with the card.”

There is no reason why the surrogate pradhan should hold on to the cards unless he wants to fill it up with up with fictitious figures. And this suspicion was seconded by work site supervisor Mohammed Umar Khan who said, “The pradhan has the cards. I don't know why he does not give it to the people. He could be bungling on the records.”

For a daily wager the only record of the work done is in the hands of the pradhan with no signature or even a thumbprint of any of the villagers.

However, the surrogate pradhan of Agona, Ravi Shankar Tiwari argued, “Those who have joined late, don’t have cards. But I will give the job card tomorrow.”

But this turns out to be the rule rather than the exception in Rae Bareily. Meanwhile, Lokaipura is rife with discontent and anger with the villagers on the brink of breaking down.

“The pradhan cut my money even on the day my wife died,” a tearful daily wageworker Ram Pyare said.

So where are the job cards? Another surrogate pradhan Ibrahim said, “The job cards are with the minister. I will give it tomorrow.”

People living in this star constituency and working for one of the star programmes of the UPA Government don't have their most basic entitlement – a job card.

While the Government is gearing to present the Union Budget, touted to be for the aam aadmi, and also thinking of scaling up the programme to cover all the districts in the country, it needs to do some serious rethinking about where its budgetary allocation is actually being spent.

The Budget may hold promises of a mega debt waiver but at Mubarakpur Mukhotia farmers like Suruddin are fighting to hold on to their land as the Ministry of Petroleum wants it for the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, the foundation stone for which has already been laid.

Tired of fighting a lonely battle against the Government, a distraught Suruddin said, “I will kill myself and my children if they take away my land.”

Though, the acquisition notice has not come yet, repeated attempts at land surveys has triggered panic waves among the villagers. Afterall, it is their MP Rahul Gandhi's dream project and he needs 100 acres of land or maybe even more to meet his target.

The Congress, too, doesn’t seem to spell hope for these farmers. Party supporter Yaar Mohammad said, “We spoke with the SDM, and he said if anyone can save you, it’s Rahul Gandhi.”

But many villagers like Phulao, a marginal farmer, have said that they rather be “bombed” than see their land being taken away.

So, while the UPA government is gearing up to announce a farmer-centric Budget, in the heartland of its top leaders, farmers may not be left with either land or job cards.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)

#National Rural Employment Guarantee Act #Congress #farmers