Owing to ignorance on the part of poor villagers and lack of interest being shown by nationalised and cooperative banks, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is facing a rough weather in the district despite more than two months of its implementation on paper. Of the 25,000-odd poor families who have shown interest in getting employment under this scheme and actually procured application forms from the authorities, only 1,677 have so far been able to get job cards, which are a prerequisite for demanding job under the scheme. The NREGS is a much hyped scheme of the government under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which provides right to work as a guarantee to villagers. The scheme envisages that the authorities are bound to provide 100 man days of labour work to villagers who are willing to do so. The scheme also provides that the authorities will have to provide compensation to those who want to do manual work but are not provided job by the authorities within 15 days of his demand. The scheme was implemented throughout the country from April 1, 2008, except for 82 districts of the country where it came into being as a pilot project in 2006. "I got the form from Fatehabad but did not know how to fill it. Somehow, I got it filled from a teacher but now bank officials are reluctant to open my account. Unless my bank account is opened, no job card will be issued for my household and in the absence of the job card, I am neither entitled to get employment nor compensation in the event of its denial,' says Om Parkash of Bhirdana village near here. "Opening of bank accounts is definitely a problem being faced by villagers. But it is more due to ignorance of people than due to the attitude of bank officials. Villagers, as bankers have informed us, visit banks without the requisite documents, identity proof and photographs,' says C.G. Rajnikanthan, additional deputy commissioner, Fatehabad. Rajnikanthan says that a meeting of the bankers was called recently where they were told to expedite the opening of accounts. "As far as filling forms is concerned, these are quite simple and in Hindi. The villagers have only to provide information about there family members and bank account numbers,' the ADC says. "On our part, we have already identified 568 projects in the district where work can begin almost immediately. The total budget of these projects is Rs 16.67 crore and these will provide 8,52,061 man days of labour. This means in the first phase of the scheme itself, we are in a position to provide 100 man days of work to 8,520 households in the district,' Rajnikanthan adds.