Site of NREGS launch, ‘transformed’ Andhra village has few fears on changes in scheme

As the Congress leads protests against changes to the MGNREGS by the Centre, including in its name, Bandlapalli doesn’t share its apprehension. While a protest has been planned by the party in the village on Tuesday, as part of its nationwide agitation against the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin) — or VB-G Ram G — Bandlapalli is excited about the more days of guaranteed annual work (125) and shorter payment cycles (weekly), while the bar on work during the farm season is shrugged off.

The District Water Management Agency, which coordinates the MGNREGS works in Anantapur, has 754 MGNREGS job card holders in its records for Bandlapalli (more than half among a village of 1,381 people). Of them, only about 74 availed the 100 days of work mandated under the scheme last year, while the others worked between 50 and 70 days.

C Pedakka is officially the country’s first MGNREGS card holder, having received the same from PM Singh on the day of the launch. “I am over 60 now, but I still go for MGNREGS works. It has changed my life,” she says, talking about how she could send her eldest son to college because of the wages. He later found work at a private company at Anantapur.

For Pedakka, the golden moment came recently, again thanks to the MGNREGS: “His eldest daughter, my granddaughter, got into MBBS at Osmania University in Hyderabad… We are so proud… We had nothing 15-20 years ago.”

G Nagalakshmi, 38, refers to the MGNREGS as “karuvu panulu’ (drought works)”, because of the nature of a majority of the projects under it. “From sending our children to private schools to renovating our homes and purchasing mobile phones, we have been able to manage all this due to money from drought works. Of course, we are excited about more work days,” she says.

C Chandrakala, 45, who has been an MGNREGS job card holder since 2010, laughs: “125 days work is guaranteed, right? That is good, but why not make it 150 days?”

While there is lesser understanding about how states sharing 40% of the MGNREGS expenses under the new scheme would impact them, the villagers are not worried about another technicality, of the nature of works changing from demand-based to need-based. There is always “need”, explains Mahender Reddy, who got his job card in 2006, when he was 19 years’ old.

“Bandlapalli is prone to water scarcity, so there is a requirement for groundwater-recharge works, check dams, water absorption trenches, desilting works etc at all times,” he says.

Another concern raised by politicians and activists about the rural jobs scheme pausing during the farming season, for around 60 days in a year, doesn’t bother Bandlapalli much either. “We don’t do MNGREGS works during sowing and harvest periods anyway,” points out K Gopal, who does farming on his two-acre land.

Roughly, work during farming season such as sowing fetches the villagers at least Rs 500 per person per day; usually they earn several times that. Villagers say they form small groups and negotiate with the farmers, sometimes earning as much as Rs 5,000 in two-three days, after which they return to MGNREGS works again. Officials say this is one reason few require the guaranteed 100 days of work a year.

The most enthusiastic proponents of the scheme are women. Starting from small loans of up to Rs 10,000 a decade ago through the DWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas), against MGNREGS wages as security, to as much as Rs 1 lakh now, the women say a lot of their EMIs are paid via the job scheme wages.

Weekly payments would make that smoother, as under the current scheme of fortnightly payments, money gets credited with a delay of 6-7 days. This will come down to payments once in 10 days.

On how the MGNREGS has helped boost farm incomes, Additional MGNREGS Programme Officer A R Rama Rao says: “We facilitated planting of mango trees. We act as ‘watch and ward’ for three years for these fields, during which we provide fertilizers, insecticides, and other requirements… The same with pomegranate, sweet lime farms.”

B Siva Reddy, 32, who started doing MGNREGS works when he turned 20, was the first owner of a mango plantation in the village. “My parents started working under the MGNREGS in 2006 and, with that, they managed to repair the house, send me to school… With the horticulture initiative, we raised mango trees on 3.5 acres. Last season I sold Rs 3.5 lakh worth of mangoes,’’ Reddy says, adding that he still depends on income from MGNREGS works to purchase inputs for his mango farm.

Bandlapalli sarpanch P Venkata Narayanamma says the MGNREGS income has cut down outward migration. “Our people used to go to Bengaluru or Hyderabad to find work. People now prefer staying in the village. During Covid, many returned,” Narayanamma says, adding that another result of the new prosperity is the fall in violent factional clashes in the area.

A kilometre out of Bandlapalli is R Pallamma’s micro dairy. Under the MGNREGS livelihoods promotion programme, she was given six cows. “Three of them are yielding milk now and we earn about Rs 25,000 per month selling it,” she says, and hopes to eventually make Rs 70,000 per month.

There are three such micro dairies in Bandlapalli, and more families have applied for the programme.

The MGNREGS imprint can also be seen in the many water harvesting ponds, percolation tanks, and trenches around the village, which have helped bring groundwater levels up. Under various work heads, cement concrete roads have been laid.

Congress leaders say the Centre’s changes threaten Anantapur’s “pride” at being home to the MGNREGS launch, and they will “educate” Bandlapalli about it. “The BJP has not just changed the name, they have dismantled the MGNREGS,” Anantapur district Congress chief Madhusudan Reddy says.

Andhra Congress president Y S Sharmila, the daughter of YSR who was CM when the MGNREGS was launched, has announced dharnas across the state. “The efforts in launching such a great scheme from our Telugu soil were rooted in the principles of livelihood, security, ensuring that no poor person should go hungry… and village self-governance,” she says, adding that removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme was “the darkest day in the history of independent India”.

Among those who have expressed apprehensions is Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, an MP of the ruling TDP from Narasaraopet who has questioned the new 60:40 fund-sharing among the Centre and states, saying this could be a problem if the state is unable to deposit its share on time. While the TDP is an ally of the BJP at the Centre, it has expressed its concerns regarding the VB-G Ram G.

Pedakka, the MGNREGS worker No. 1, says: “Whether the name has been changed or the scheme revamped, it does not matter. All that matters is we get work for as long as we can. I want to continue.”