At Shahpur village of Malkapur Gram Panchayat in Bidar district, Narshappa, Shivaraj, Nagappa and Tukkappa, all senior citizens, have stayed back in their village even as distress migration has taken place from several villages across the Kalyana Karnataka region. While a section of the workforce migrated to bigger cities in search of manual labour, senior citizens are now being encouraged to stay back by offering work closer to home. “Despite our age, we are supporting ourselves due to employment under the new scheme. It has helped us meet our daily expenses while staying in the village,” said Narshappa, who is in his late 60s. The district administration is focusing on 12 gram panchayats along the Telangana border, covering villages that face a high risk of migration. Each gram panchayat has been allotted 10 community works and 25 individual beneficiary works, and projects capable of engaging more than 300 labourers are being taken up immediately, said Chief Executive Officer of Bidar Zilla Panchayat Girish Badole.

While an official in Kalaburagi said the rural employment scheme offers livelihood options locally, it cannot completely prevent people from moving out of the region, which is prone to high migration.

Efforts are under way to prevent migration from rural areas of Yadgir district, which is facing severe drought, through local employment generation. Officials are meeting families on the verge of migration and offering them an employment guarantee, said Yadgir Deputy Commissioner Rahul Pandve.

The community works being taken up include water-harvesting ponds, cross-drainage works, feeder canals, irrigation channels, open wells, distributary canals and mini percolation tanks, while individual works include farm ponds, open wells, poultry and pig shelters, vermicompost pits and plantations.

In high-migration areas, community works that can accommodate a larger number of workers are being taken up to provide employment to more people.

Four districts of the Kalyana Karnataka region are among the top 10 districts in Karnataka in terms of person-days generated under VB-G RAM G. Up to August 15, Bidar recorded the highest number in the region at 2.33 lakh person-days, followed by Raichur (2,05,981), Ballari (1,51,648) and Vijayanagar (1,13,232). Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada, Udupi, Chickballapur and Dharwad are among the districts that have recorded the fewest person-days. In districts such as Shivamogga, individual beneficiary works are being taken up more extensively, unlike in parts of north Karnataka where community works are being taken up in large numbers.

“Shivamogga is an agrarian district where people get jobs in the fields at higher wages. There is hardly any migration from the district in search of agricultural work elsewhere. People mostly move out for white-collar jobs,” said N. Hemanth, Chief Executive Officer, Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat. He added that there had been no change in the scheme’s implementation on the ground after it was renamed VB-G RAM G, though the number of works had increased to 318 from 262, giving beneficiaries more options.

(With inputs from G.T. Sathish in Shivamogga, Praveen B. Para in Kalaburagi and Ravi Kumar Naraboli in Yadgir)

Special initiative

As part of the awareness campaign, the Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat involved schoolchildren across all 262 gram panchayats in the district, asking them to write letters to their mothers highlighting the importance of the scheme. Officials provided the content, which the students copied and addressed to their mothers. The letters were later handed over to the mothers at a programme. “We undertook this exercise involving children to popularise the scheme and ensure that more people avail its benefits,” said B.R. Nandini, Project Director, RDPR, Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat. In many other districts too, awareness about the scheme is being created, while the window for applying for fresh job cards has been kept open.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its ally Janata Dal (Secular) on Saturday accused the Congress government in Karnataka of “spreading misinformation” on the Union government’s VB-G RAM G scheme, while welcoming Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s decision to convene a special session of the Legislature to discuss the issue.

At a joint press conference addressed by Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy, BJP State president B.Y. Vijayendra and other senior party leaders, the Opposition alliance said the scheme was a major rural employment and livelihood programme conceptualised under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and aimed at strengthening gram panchayats and social audits.

Mr. Vijayendra said the Congress was attempting to “mislead” people by claiming that the scheme would dilute MGNREGA. “The Centre has increased the number of workdays from 100 to 125 and ensured funds reach beneficiaries directly. Gram panchayat decisions will continue as before and powers are not being taken away. The Congress never thought of schemes but only scams during its years in power. It is now campaigning against the scheme even before its roll out,” he said, asserting that the BJP-JD(S) would take the issue to the village level to counter the “misinformation”.

Open debate

Mr. Kumaraswamy challenged Congress leaders to an open debate on the scheme. He said the Congress, which ruled the country for decades, did not name major schemes after Mahatma Gandhi and had “failed to address corruption and fake bills under MGNREGA”. “MGNREGA has not been stopped. Irregularities have been corrected. The Congress is now opposing transparency and social audits,” he said.

According to him, the scheme follows a 60:40 funding pattern, with the Centre bearing the larger share. He said the scheme provides for project design at the gram panchayat level, priority setting by gram sabhas and mandatory social audits. “This level of accountability was missing earlier,” he said, claiming that the Centre was not weakening panchayat powers or State rights.

Fake job cards

The Opposition alliance alleged that the State government had previously failed to prevent fake job cards and inflated bills, and cited past incidents where wage payments were delayed.

Both leaders welcomed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s decision to convene a two-day special session to discuss the scheme. “Let us debate what the Congress achieved through MGNREGA and what the Centre has done in the last 10 years,” Mr. Vijayendra said, adding that the State government had not yet notified its promised State Education Policy after deciding not to implement the National Education Policy.

The alliance also alleged that the Congress was unable to accept the Prime Minister’s popularity and was attempting to create discontent. It said the Opposition would not allow “false narratives” to go unchallenged.