MGNREGA Accident In Gurugram Leave Three Women Workers Dead

Eight women working at the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) project got trapped in a mudslide. Three women died in a tragic accident in Pataudi village, Gurugram, while four other women sustained injuries.

On June 13, Tuesday, a five-foot-high mound of mud crashed on women while they were digging for a pond. According to the police, the injured women were rushed to the hospital and were set to be critically injured and admitted to the ICU ward. The officials also claimed that digging at the bottom caused the mudslide. The sub-divisional magistrate of Pataudi, Sandeep Aggarwal, said that as per the investigation, women started digging at the bottom, which destabilised the mound. However, the team is deployed to conduct further investigation.

Officials on MGNREGA Accident In Gurugram

The locals and rescue crew rescued the women. Assistant commissioner of police (Pataudi), Harinder Kumar, pointed out that one woman had a narrow escape and asked for help. In the Hindustan Times's report, Kumar said, "She raised an alarm, after which locals reached the spot and called the police. A team from Pataudi police station was sent to the spot, and the women were pulled out."

The three were declared dead when taken to a nearby hospital; the rest were referred to Gurugram’s Civil Hospital. According to officials, the work of digging a pond was going on at a government site, and for the last six months, only eight women were on the site. The deceased women are identified as Billo Delhi (45), Kola Devi (40), and Priyanka Singh (30), residents of Pataudi. The woman who escaped the accident is identified as Kiran Davi, who also lives in the same village.

This is not the first time MNREGA has been called out on issues of safety. Earlier, women working on the MGNREGA project also died in such accidents. In 2019, 10 women MGNREGA workers were killed in a minor landslide in Telangana’s Thileru village in the Marikal Mandal. Activists claimed that if they were given a proper place to rest, the accident would have been avoided. In another incident from Rajasthan, three workers died due to heat stroke; again, no proper shelter was provided. The whole point is that women mostly pick up work under MGNREGA, but still the sites lack safety measures. Even in this case, they were not provided with safety gear. However, officials claim that no technical work was involved, so no safety gear was provided to them. The question is, when will authorities seriously think about safety measures when it comes to labourers working on MGNREGA projects?

In the latest update, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Gurugram, Dr. Virender Yadav, said that two women have been discharged and one is still undergoing treatment.

Image Credit: Hindustan Times

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