KOPPAL: Their fortunes blighted by consecutive droughts farmers and agriculture labourers of the district are migrating in droves to the cities - Bengaluru Mangaluru , et al. Although the district administration has been making efforts to provide jobs to the people under MNREGA, besides taking up relief work, they have been unable to stem the tide of farmers from the villages.Farmers constitute the majority of the district's population, and the failure of the monsoon has plunged the community into distress.Prakash Karishetti, a farmer in Marali village, Gangavathi taluk, told TOI that nearly 600 people in his village had moved to Bengaluru."The population of our village is 4,000. Our village is situated on the banks of Tungabhadra, but drought has affected us badly. Most of the labourers in Marali sugar factory have moved to Kudatini and Ballari to cultivate red chillies," he added.Rudrappa Nittali, Kashimsab Dangi, Honnappa Kalkeri - all residents of Marali — left for Bengaluru in January, but have returned for Ugadi."We'll go back to Bengaluru once the festival's over. We return to our villages to celebrate jatras (village fairs). We generally leave our children under the care of the elders. If they are eligible to work, we take them along once their examinations are over," the villagers said.President of Danapur gram panchayat, Mohammed Shafi said, "We are asking farm labourers not to migrate to cities. Of the 1,600 jobs under MNREGA, which guarantees work for 100 days, we have just 930 job cardholders. The rest are vacant because people haven't come forward to avail of the facility."Pointing out that provisions would be made to offer fresh jobs from April 1 by utilising funds earmarked for 2017-18, Shafi added, "Our rural development and panchayat raj department assistant executive engineer has directed us to ensure maximum employment to prevent migration."Chandrashekhar Tegginamani, a teacher in Yelburga, said that around 15 to 20 people hired jeeps or other such large vehicles and left the village. "Since it's hard to carry more luggage on buses, they are hiring jeeps, which cost less as well," he said.President of the Tungabhadra Ulisi Andolan Samiti Vitthappa Gorantli, however, attributed the large-scale migration to the failure of MNREGA. "Owing to the negligence of officials and politicians, MNREGA has not been implemented efficiently. Due to the delay involved in payment of wages, people have lost their hope and are going to cities in search of greener pastures. The district administration should ensure that the people are utilised fully," Gorantli added.NEKRTC buses see mad rushDivisional controller for North Eastern Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC), Koppal division, B Borayya said that most people boarding the buses at Kushtagi and Gangavathi taluks were headed for Mangaluru. "On the other hand, those in Yelburga are mainly bound for Bengaluru. We have formed teams to arrange non-stop buses. If we receive requests from two to three neighbouring villages, we will arrange for people to be picked up directly from the respective village and subsequently drop them wherever they want in Mangaluru. We will not levy extra charge on luggage," Borayya said.Minister calls for actionAt a drought review meeting conducted on March 18, rural development and panchayat raj minister HK Patil instructed officials to pay MNREGA wages within a fortnight after the work's completion. He further told them that failure to comply with the directive would see the wages hiked by 0.05% — the additional sum being paid from the penalty collected from officials responsible for the delay."Officials should make arrangements for drinking water if the number of people involved in the project exceeds 100. If the number of children on the site exceeds five, the administration should employ somebody to look after them, in addition to deploying government doctors," Patil told officials at the meeting.

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