Are the village development officers in Karnataka being targeted by gram panchayat members — most of whom are contractors and are thus banned under NREGA — for being the custodians of NREGA?
Between October 2011 and April 2012, three cases of suicide and two cases of assault on young VDOs in North Karnataka have been reported. Of the 2,500 candidates who were recruited for these posts, already 277 (over 10 per cent) of them have resigned in less than three years time.
The VDOs are custodians of the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in gram panchayats and are chief executives of the GP. They are joint signatories to the funds released under NREGA, and hence become targets of the mafia.
The state government, it seems, has a lot to answer about how it intends to protect these vulnerable officers from the mafia which is not only a threat to the young officers who are trying to make a positive change in the villages, but to the implementation of the NREGA scheme in the State.