Laxman Mange Pehare and Nanhu Gaekwad are unhappy men. Unaware of each other’s presence in the sweltering streets of Nashik, both are vehemently protesting one of the UPA government’s flagship programme—the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme—in the temple town. The scheme that has promised a minimum 100 days of employment to the poor has “failed to live up to” Pehare’s expectations.

While Pehare has spent the last month demanding work and hoped that the nationwide implementation of the programme from April 1 will bail him out of the present agrarian crisis in his fields, Gaekwad is stoutly refusing to implement the programme saying that gram sevaks across the state are being overburdened.

President of the Maharashtra Gram Sevak Union, Gaekwad is leading over 14,000 gram sevaks in a statewide protest against the scheme. In Nashik district alone, 800 gram sevaks have hit the streets, demanding that they not be “overburdened” with having to implement the scheme.

“Suddenly all the load is on us,” says Gaekwad. “We have other schemes to implement also. Under the NREGS, we have to maintain so many records and we are not technical people to implement a lot of the works.”

So while the gram sevaks do their basic duties, not taking on any NREGS work, in Pehare’s Bhilmal village, the fields are scattered with the remains of this pest-ridden nagli crop. Also scattered across the village is the declining hope of farmers getting a job to see them through to the next crop cycle.

“First we asked, then we demanded and then we protested,” says Pehare. “But it hasn’t helped. Our crop was eaten away by pests. We need the work now more than ever.”

... contd.