Plea to reappoint NREGS field assistants

National Backward Classes Welfare Association president R. Krishnaiah has requested Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to take back (reappoint) over 7,600 field assistants who were working on contract basis for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and were removed by the government in March last year following an indefinite protest by them. In a letter addressed to the Chief Minister on Thursday, Mr. Krishnaiah said the field assistants, who were playing a key role in the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme till they were removed unceremoniously last year, and their families were suffering badly in the absence of any alternative employment opportunity. Most of them had crossed the upper age limit for competing for other jobs as they had served in the NREGS for about 15 years. Removal of field assistants on the ground of going on strike without permission was illegal, as they were on contract basis, Mr. Krishnaiah said many of them belonged to SCs, STs and BCs and about 26 of them had died of mental agony arising out of financial problems and inability to feed their families. About 15 of them had ended their lives forcibly unable to find an alternative source of livelihood, Mr. Krishnaiah explained in the letter.