Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 11: All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference today submitted a memorandum to Union Ministry of Rural Development and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha through Tehsildar Dansal of district Jammu regarding the issue of compulsory bio-metric attendance of MGNREGA workers.
A delegation led by Anil Sharma president of the AJKPC along with other functionaries of the organisation, local Panchayat members and other prominent people today staged a peaceful march from block headquarters Dansal to the office of Tehsildar Dansal and handed over him a memorandum carrying the demands.
The protestors during the march raised slogans against the officers of the Union Government alleging that they had misled the Union Government and without any home work issued the diktat of holding bio-metric attendance of MGNREGA workers twice a day.
Anil Sharma, while interacting with the media informed that in the memorandum they had urged the Union Government to defer this diktat of holding the bio-metric attendance of the MGNREGA workers for at least 2-3 years or till 100 percent internet optical fiber coverage in rural, border and hilly areas of J&K. Sharma said that even till date many areas of J&K are without electricity then how can such order regarding biometric and GPS be implemented, with such order only poor labour will suffer.
He cautioned the officers to restrain from snatching the livelihood of poor workers who are getting minimum wages with their hard work and serving the nation . Sharma said instead of harassing the poor labour, these bureaucrats must concentrate on other aspects to curtail save money of the government.
He said in a welfare state like India, the people are the masters as per the constitution but some ‘Babus’ are trying to mar relations of the government with the people.
Prominent among those who accompanied the AJKPC president include Sarpanch Soma Devi, Jasmeen Akhtar, Roomal Singh, Balweer Singh, Mansa Ram, Amjad Beg, Pyare Lal, Kuldeep Sharma, Nisha Rajput, Omkar Singh, Saraaj Din and others.