Imphal, December 30 2008: People living with HIV/AIDS has the rights to get job cards under the NREGS, according to an interim order of the Supreme Court of India read with the Society Tackling Act Through Rights (STAR) project.

But due to ignorance of same, this section of people are not availing the benefits said legal cum advocacy officer of the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit Soibam Hemanta who talked as resource person at the three day training programme held at New Checkon today sponsored by Action AIDS and organized by the Network of Positive People, Senapati in collaboration with Senapati Lawyers Collective.

The three day long programme was kicked off yesterday and Hemanta was speaking as resource person in today's programme.

He further said that as per the interim order issued by the Supreme Court of India on August 5 this year, to get job cards of the NREGS by the people living with HIV/AIDS is a compulsory one.

He said even though the order was passed, any of the state in the country implements the order till date.

The main factor behind the non-availing of the benefits it is the lack of legal awareness among this section of the people.

Apart from this, he added, there is also another order of the Supreme Court which stated that this section of the society should also get AAY cards under the public distribution system (PDS) and the same is also not converted into work.

With the objective of making available the legal rights, the Lawyers' Collective was formed in 1998, he said.

Further talking on the occasion, he also expressed the great role of law, policy and judicial activists and to get the objective, for the first time Lawyers' Collective has been studying into the matter since the unit taken up the first HIV/AIDS related case in 1980.Since HIV/AIDS activist Dominic D' Shouza was jailed under Goa Public Health (Amendment) Act 1986, the argument on fighting HIV/AIDS cases based on the Human Rights come up.

He went on talk to the various aspects of law and the benefits that can be availed by the people living with HIV/AIDS in the state under the initiative of the Lawyers' Collective.

Attending the function, secretary Hegin of the Network of Positive People, Manipur also said that there are many rights which could get by the people living with HIV/AIDS under the social security schemes of the country.

He also observed that not only this section of the society but also the government officials are still lack of awareness on the rights to get job cards under the NREGS Act.

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