The Hindu   08.08.2012

Corporation lukewarm towards Aiyyankali employment scheme

The Aiyyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme, drawn
up by the previous LDF government on the lines of the Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNEGS), is not even in the
sphere of discussion of the Corporation which is busy giving finishing
touches to the People’s Plan project and the perspective plan for the
next five years.

This State-funded project is aimed
at providing 100 days of guaranteed unskilled manual work to the
unemployed members of urban households.

While the
Corporation maintains that the State government’s delay in sanctioning
of funds for the scheme has pushed the project in the backburner,
government officials say the civic body has been sanctioned Rs.5 lakh
for the project way back in March.

“An amount of Rs.5
lakh has been transferred to the Corporation for the Aiyyankali
project, and two data entry operators and an overseer have also been
appointed exclusively for the project. However, the Corporation is yet
to start any work on the scheme. The staff deployed for the scheme has
also been re-deployed for other work,’’ an official with the
Commissionerate of Rural Development says.

The worst
affected by this delay are hundreds of MGNREGS workers from the five
panchayats that were integrated with the Corporation in 2010. Since
their panchayats have now become Corporation wards, they can no more
avail themselves of the benefit of MGNREGS, the official says.

Corporation
officials also say the amount sanctioned by the government is only
meant to meet the administrative expenses for carrying out the
preliminary works on the project. The local body claims to have already
begun the administrative work with the money.

“The
amount of Rs.5 lakh is just a token amount. It is too meagre to take up
any project under the employment guarantee scheme. It will only be
sufficient for making the preliminary preparations for the
implementation of the project. We have already started preparing the
labour budget estimates for works that could be taken up under the
scheme. Soon after Onam, we will start the labour registration process,”
says Corporation works standing committee chairman V.S. Padmakumar.

Corporation
welfare standing committee chairperson Palayam Rajan says the reason
why the civic body is reluctant to go ahead with the project is that it
will become obliged to provide work to scheme beneficiaries within a
stipulated period once job cards are issued.

“The
fact is that the State government itself has crippled this ambitious
project. Unless they sanction the fund how can we go ahead with issuing
job cards. Apart from a token amount, there is no provision for this
scheme even in the State budget,’’ Mr. Rajan says.

Mr.
Padmakumar, however, says the Corporation is planning to prepare a
detailed project linking the Aiyyankali Urban Employment Guarantee
Scheme with the solid waste management in the city and submit it to the
Central Government for funding.

“There is a lot of
scope for this scheme with regard to sanitation and solid waste
management. Workers can be deployed for our various decentralised
garbage treatment schemes and also for cleaning up canals, drains and
ponds in the city. We are confident that we will be able to evolve
Aiyyankali scheme into a feasible sanitation and garbage management
project and ensure the involvement of people in the city by providing
them jobs through these projects,’’ he says.