He becomes a bonded labourer, this time by choice

Chandra Dharua with his family at their Badadakla village­home in Tureikela block of Odisha’s Bolangir district. When Chandra Dharua, a 48­year­old man from Odisha’s Bolangir district, was rescued from 22­year­long bondage in Andhra Pradesh three years ago, he had vowed not to look back on a life of torturous ordeal in brick kilns. However, it did not take even one year for his resolve to melt. With government apathy and lack of employment dashing his hopes, he along with his family members has accepted bondage again. Now he is negotiating with labour intermediaries for a better deal (higher debt amount) for migrating to distant places in either Andhra Pradesh or Telengana. Official documents of Medak district, now in Telengana, had identified him and his family members for being bonded labourers for 22 years. However, it has failed to evoke any sympathy for him in his native state of Odisha. In the past three years, Chandra has received only 90 kg of rice, a humanitarian assistance of Rs.900 from the sarpanch of his village and Rs.21,500 out of Rs.48,500 for house building support sanctioned in his name by the State government.

As per the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, bonded labourers are entitled for an assistance of Rs.20,000. Both Central and State governments share the amount equally. Since Chandra, his wife and his daughter were rescued from bonded labour, they were entitled to get Rs.60,000. But they have not received anything till now. When asked why he decided to return to a place where a brick manufacturer wanted them to toil under terrible working conditions, he retorted: “Do I have any other option here? I could not plough my 90 decimal of land as I did not have a pair of bullocks. Engagement in agriculture is seasonal. Rest of the year, it is difficult to arrange two square meals a day.” Chandra and his family members had taken an advance (debt) of Rs.60,000 for working eight months from November 2014 to June 2015. Now, he is confident that experience of working extremely long hours without any leave at minimal wage and deftness in making bricks would help him raise advance to Rs.70,000. Despite being aware of torture and low payment in brick kilns and construction sector, thousands of villagers like Chandra have taken advances to fall into bondage. The labour market, which runs into several hundred crores of rupees in several western Odisha districts, is now red hot. Population of labourers migrating annually is likely to increase as deficit monsoon rain had led to drought in major pockets. 9/3/2016 He becomes a bonded labourer, this time by choice. 

As per the Odisha government statistics, 1,35,714 labourers were officially sent through 3,213 registered labour agents between 2011 and 2014. During the same period, 3,113 labourers were rescued. But as per unofficial estimates, the number of labourers migrating to brick kilns annually would touch around 3 lakh. Registers on labour migration maintained by voluntary organisations say that as many as 9,595 children, including school­going students from 301 villages in western districts of Bargarh, Nuapada and Bolangir, had accompanied their parents to other States during 2014­15. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik this week announced his government’s resolve to create 1.62 crore man­days by spending Rs.500 crore under the MGNREGA in face of the looming drought situation. “The announcement on MGNREGA will not be able to hold migrating labourers back. In the past, villagers were tired of seeking jobs under MGNREGA, but the administrative inertia left them in the lurch,” said Daya Sagar Pradhan, an activist who has lived in brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for 10 years and seen the plight of migrant workers from close quarters. 

The Hindu: September 19th 2015 By Satya Sunder Barik

Drought, destitution and distress migration

Umi Daniel

Half of the 688 districts in India today are reeling under the extreme situation of drought. Some of the regions, particularly the western part of India has been consecutively experiencing drought but during 2016 the intensity of drought has become more severe and widespread. Odisha has a long history of drought and this year too it is under the firing line of the nature and facing drought with varied degree of impact and intensity. According to the government of Odisha, out of the 30 districts in Odisha, 28 districts have been affected by drought. Of late, the Government of India has released Rs. 276.54 crores as drought assistance. It is alleged that, the Govt. of India’s release of drought assistance is much less against its commitment of Rs. 815 crores.

All including the IMD predicted a deficient and low rainfall during 2015. The farmers and the people on the ground were all aware about the situations and started their own contingency plans to face yet another drought. Nonetheless, in India the administrative ritual is quite cumbersome and hasn’t transformed since the days of British Raj on drought management. The colonial process of the district collectors’ crop cutting report is considered as significant administrative paraphernalia to announce drought or deny drought in a particular geographical area. Once the ground assessment is done, another high level bureaucratic exercise is conducted by the central government and based on their field report the drought assistance is determined. The sequence of events for declaring drought and initiating relief work hang back hugely and fail to address the immediate and most vital human sufferings and effects like distress and mass migration. This is because, in the absence of timely administrative action to generate rural employment and contingency plan on provision for agriculture, irrigation and drinking water force the vulnerable and poor people to move to urban areas for employment and survival. And thus, along with landless agriculture workers, due to crop failure, the debt ridden farmers also join the bandwagon of wage seeker migrants. While drought is bane for poor people, it is boon time for labour traffickers and middleman who earns good dividends due to sudden spurt in men, women and children predisposed to work as migrant labourers.

India has got a long history of implementation of drought relief programmes and particularly wage employment schemes during drought. The Maharashtra state employment guarantee programme of 70’s was one of the successful drought relief mass employment generation programme ever implemented in India. India had in the past formulated string of rural employment generation programmes, however the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2005 (MGNREGA) was considered as a historic and ambitious rural employment generation programme to combat rural unemployment, distress, rejuvenate natural resources and create permanent and productive assets for poverty alleviation.

In view of the drought situation, the Central government has increased the number of days under MGNREGA from 100 to 150 in all the drought prone regions. The Government of Odisha has added another 50 days and made it 200 days employment for all the drought prone districts. However, the enhanced employment days under MGNREGA so far has failed to deliver on the ground. In a calamity situation, people will not wait for all the trumpet beat and declaration of additional days of employment under MGNREGA. It is quite visible that, the people on the ground are slowly losing faith on MGNREGA due its poor deliverables. After half a decade of its formulation and implementation, MGNREGA is today marred with lot of structural problems, failed and unsuccessful experiments, corruption and is struggling to reach out to at least 25% of its registered job seekers with 100 full days of employment. In Odisha a massive 66 lakhs people have registered for employment under the MGNREGA, unfortunately it could only provide 100 days of employment to less than 1 lakh people.

In India, the days of food for work, calamity relief work, fodder schemes and emergency feeding programmes are more or less being phased out or are in transition. Despite having loopholes in these emergency programmes, some programmes such as food for work, emergency water supply, adaptable agriculture, fodder for the cattle and emergency feeding for the destitute in the past have greatly benefited the people to reduce vulnerability and confronting the affects of natural calamities.

In 2009, India launched its National Policy on Disaster Management with a vision to build a safe and disaster resilient India. The policy aims to develop a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster oriented and technology driven strategy through a culture of prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response. However, the capacity, knowledge, skills and infusing timely and appropriate budget for both short term and long term planning is lacking. The National Climate Change Action plan and the state plan of action on climate change needs to be implemented on a priority basis to create a resilience community to combat drought and vulnerability. There should be a paradigm shift in managing drought in India. The flagship MGNREGA and the National Food Security Act (NFSA) has got much needed ingredient to provide relief as well as long term solutions on drought Mitigation. While the Food Security Act will prevent hunger and destitution, MGNREGA need to be made more receptive and accountable to create durable assets for agriculture, land & water conservation, forestry and should be proactive in providing employment and timely wages to check distress migration.