Assam Lok Sabha Election 2009
DIPHU, April 9: Karkon Teron alias Deuri Teron is a small village of 11 households in the outskirts of Den’arong, about eight kilometres from the Dokmoka Police Outpost along NH 36 that connects Doboka in the Nowgong district with Karbi Anglong’s head quarter town of Diphu. Monsing Teron is the 55 year old headman of this nondescript Karbi village who is reduced to doing odd manual works to sustain a family of nine adults, including two grown up daughters who dropped out of schools.
He knows that a job card can give him and his dependants some respite in the time of severe recession. Teron, a staunch supporter of the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) since 1986 is under a tremendous mental conflict but finally he is forced to give in to the Congress coercion in order to acquire a job card to keep his family hearth burning.
On April 4, in a local level Congress rally held at Bampathar, Teron and a group of villagers publicly vowed to vote for the Congress against the ASDC. Because, the local Congress functionary and the group leader is under express instructions from the party’s district high command to rope in as many supporters to vote for the Congress using the job card as a sure-fire ‘vote guarantee’. This is how the entire job-card business appears to a faceless villager who is at the mercy of the ruling Congress and the huge machinery of officers and middlemen according to concerned circles.
In rural Karbi Anglong, Monsing Teron is not alone in the similar situation. Unskilled and poor villagers are not aware of the various provisions of the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Act’ (NREGA), the flagship scheme of the Congress led UPA Government. For an aam admi like Monsing Teron, it matters but little that the NREGA scheme guarantees 100 days job on demand in a given financial year and that he is entitled to ‘unemployment allowance’ if the nodal implementing agency fails to process his application for a job.
He is only concerned about the cash payment that is given to him even if the mandatory 100-day job was fulfilled by the programme officer or not. Worst still, he is also woefully unaware if a social audit has been conducted to ensure ‘accountability, transparency and participation’. He however knows that in an average, he was employed only for a month or so. He has questioned the local ‘group leader’ why 100-day guarantee is not fulfilled which is always evaded citing political reasons.
According to an account, the NREGA scheme has so far provided 1.78 lakh households at the expense of Rs. 140.54 crores out of the total fund of Rs. 174.97 crores. But interestingly, of the ongoing works of 2062, none could be shown as completed (2006-07).
This election is exposing the vicious cycle of middlemen, amenable officers and the ruling Congress politicians who came together to siphon off huge portion of the NREGA fund by way of flouting the 100-day provision and underpaying the job-card holders. And yesterday, Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) executive member (EM) Hemari Teron was humiliated by his own party men at Phuloni where the 21st Annual Session of the Karbi Lammet Amei (Karbi Literary Association) was recently held.
Eye-witness accounts later said, the EM who was at Phuloni to supervise the dismantling work of the just concluded 21st KLA Session, was forced to virtually flee the venue with his PSO. The incident has created both amusement and condemnations from the detractors of the beleaguered Hemari Teron who was accused of arm-twisting the KLA to coincide its 21st Annual Session to suit Congress poll agenda and collecting a huge amount of unaccounted fund.
According to disgruntled party insiders like Sundor Ingti and Alex Rongpi, the party is inviting its own defeat in the ensuing parliamentary election by the huge job-card irregularities. Seems like the Congress in the KAAC is helplessly trapped in the design of its own making from where there is very little escape. Observers feel, bereft of anything substantial to talk about its achievements through the huge development funds under the KAAC, the Congress is now only trying to drum up the central sponsored NREGA scheme that has gone awfully wrong for the party to be of any electoral help. THE SENTINEL
DIPHU, April 9: Karkon Teron alias Deuri Teron is a small village of 11 households in the outskirts of Den’arong, about eight kilometres from the Dokmoka Police Outpost along NH 36 that connects Doboka in the Nowgong district with Karbi Anglong’s head quarter town of Diphu. Monsing Teron is the 55 year old headman of this nondescript Karbi village who is reduced to doing odd manual works to sustain a family of nine adults, including two grown up daughters who dropped out of schools.
He knows that a job card can give him and his dependants some respite in the time of severe recession. Teron, a staunch supporter of the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) since 1986 is under a tremendous mental conflict but finally he is forced to give in to the Congress coercion in order to acquire a job card to keep his family hearth burning.
On April 4, in a local level Congress rally held at Bampathar, Teron and a group of villagers publicly vowed to vote for the Congress against the ASDC. Because, the local Congress functionary and the group leader is under express instructions from the party’s district high command to rope in as many supporters to vote for the Congress using the job card as a sure-fire ‘vote guarantee’. This is how the entire job-card business appears to a faceless villager who is at the mercy of the ruling Congress and the huge machinery of officers and middlemen according to concerned circles.
In rural Karbi Anglong, Monsing Teron is not alone in the similar situation. Unskilled and poor villagers are not aware of the various provisions of the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Act’ (NREGA), the flagship scheme of the Congress led UPA Government. For an aam admi like Monsing Teron, it matters but little that the NREGA scheme guarantees 100 days job on demand in a given financial year and that he is entitled to ‘unemployment allowance’ if the nodal implementing agency fails to process his application for a job.
He is only concerned about the cash payment that is given to him even if the mandatory 100-day job was fulfilled by the programme officer or not. Worst still, he is also woefully unaware if a social audit has been conducted to ensure ‘accountability, transparency and participation’. He however knows that in an average, he was employed only for a month or so. He has questioned the local ‘group leader’ why 100-day guarantee is not fulfilled which is always evaded citing political reasons.
According to an account, the NREGA scheme has so far provided 1.78 lakh households at the expense of Rs. 140.54 crores out of the total fund of Rs. 174.97 crores. But interestingly, of the ongoing works of 2062, none could be shown as completed (2006-07).
This election is exposing the vicious cycle of middlemen, amenable officers and the ruling Congress politicians who came together to siphon off huge portion of the NREGA fund by way of flouting the 100-day provision and underpaying the job-card holders. And yesterday, Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) executive member (EM) Hemari Teron was humiliated by his own party men at Phuloni where the 21st Annual Session of the Karbi Lammet Amei (Karbi Literary Association) was recently held.
Eye-witness accounts later said, the EM who was at Phuloni to supervise the dismantling work of the just concluded 21st KLA Session, was forced to virtually flee the venue with his PSO. The incident has created both amusement and condemnations from the detractors of the beleaguered Hemari Teron who was accused of arm-twisting the KLA to coincide its 21st Annual Session to suit Congress poll agenda and collecting a huge amount of unaccounted fund.
According to disgruntled party insiders like Sundor Ingti and Alex Rongpi, the party is inviting its own defeat in the ensuing parliamentary election by the huge job-card irregularities. Seems like the Congress in the KAAC is helplessly trapped in the design of its own making from where there is very little escape. Observers feel, bereft of anything substantial to talk about its achievements through the huge development funds under the KAAC, the Congress is now only trying to drum up the central sponsored NREGA scheme that has gone awfully wrong for the party to be of any electoral help. THE SENTINEL
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