(TibetanReview.net, Jun01’23) – India’s Union Territory Ladakh has included Tibetans living in its refugee camps (TR Camps) in the country’s ‘right to work’ guarantee programme, according to gulistannewstv.com May 31. The programme is implemented across India under a federal parliament Act called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA or simply NREGA).
The report said Executive Councillor for Rural Development Department (RDD), Tashi Namgyal Yakzee, chaired a meeting with all stakeholders of the Rural Development Department and representatives from TR Camps to implement the job card under MGNRGA among Tibetans in the Tibetan refugee settlement that adjoins villages of Leh.
Sonam Nurboo, ADDC/ACD Leh, has given detailed information regarding the REGA Scheme under which economically and socially vulnerable sections of people in rural areas of Leh District will be assisted under the NREGA. He has added that every interested family will be issued a job card under this scheme and all eligible members’ names may be incorporated for wage-based employment.
Yakzee has called on TR Camps people to apply for the job cards so that they might be provided wage employment. He has said the eligibility criteria had been kept simple so that the large number of rural TR would benefit from the scheme.
Yakzee has added that the Hill Council Leh had initiated various subsidised schemes and added that its aim was to provide maximum benefits to all beneficiaries including Tibetan people.
The meeting was stated to have been attended by ADDC/ACD Leh Sonam Nurboo; DPO Leh, Junaid Amin; officiating CRO Sonam Chudon, and 12 representatives of TR Camps.
Passed in 2005, NREGA is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’. Its aim is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to at least one member of every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.