The Report - North 24 Parganas

19. PRASAD MANDALPolitical pressures are a major hindrance in effective implementation ofNREGAPrasad Mondol is 68 years old and has been working as a daily wage labourer inthe Hooghly, Bardhaman and Dakhshineshwar area as a mason. After takingcare of all personal expenses, he could save Rs. 1500 to Rs. 2000 on householdexpenses. Prasad heads a family of several members including his mother, wife,son and daughter-in-law.“My son also works in the Hooghly, Bardhaman area for additional income. Alltogether we had better affordability in the past. Now that we have investedsome money in land, our expenses have been constrained.”Prasad’s mother suffers from mental health issues and so there health expenses inthe family that has to be borne. Besides Prasad himself, suffers from diarrhoea.Prasad owns about three bighas of land. The pond excavated through theNREGA program is over 10 kathas of land. The family received about Rs. 13000 forpond excavation, besides the work on job card. But Prasad has not been able touse the money for pond excavation. “There have been regular disturbancesfrom the local parties and it has caused problems with ongoing work.”Of the 2.5 bighas of land that is left for cultivation, Prasad is only able to cultivaterice once a year on one bigha of land. This is primarily due to lack of water. Thewater from the pond is only sufficient for a bigha of rice cultivation.Prasad has found employment with NREGA on various projects. Besides work onpond excavation, he has been employed in road building projects, river bankrebuilding work etc. He has been employed for a total of 33 days for excavationof 3 ponds in total. The payments that have been made to him as worker’scompensation have actually been delayed for a long time. Prasad says, “I havebeen remunerated after 6 months and in three separate instalments.” Besides,Prasad has also been disappointed by the attitude of the local village head whokeeps count of the number of workers employed and where. “As daily wageworkers, the village head is supposed to keep track of our employment and oursignatures on the days of work per project. Quite unfortunately however, he doesnot value our signatures and in effect we have no proper count of the number ofdays we have actually worked for. If the system was more value based andtransparent, I think I could have left my work outside and worked for NREGA.”Some complications also stem from political orientations. Prasad says that hadhe belonged to the local majority party he would have had all his job cardssigned and that way his remunerations would have been guaranteed. Now that