In many districts, the CPI(ML) has conducted in-depth investigations of how Food for Work Schemes are being implemented, as a basis for mobilising the rural poor on the issue of employment. Here we bring you a report of one such experience from Darbhanga and Samastipur in Bihar .
T o dilute the Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Central Government has launched a National Food For Work Scheme in 150 backward districts, providing work for agrarian labour and rural poor at the local level. This time, it is claimed to be a dress rehearsal for the EGA. Among the 15 Bihar districts selected under this scheme, three are from the Darbhanga Commissionary – Darbhanga, Madhubani and Samastipur. Let us take a look at how the FFW scheme works here.
There is no participation of local people, through panchayats or gram sabhas, in the selection of the work to be done. It is all decided by the contractors and officers. One can imagine the level of corruption from the fact that approval from three agencies is taken in different names for the same work! Some panchayats have no work, while some others grab many projects. There are many fake projects get approval; for instance, in the name of building a road passing over an irrigation canal - that is now dry and out of use! Such fake projects are given to contractors by the Estimate Department without any on-the-spot inspection. For a work requiring two lakhs, the estimated amount is quoted as six lakhs. Many projects were cancelled and junior engineers removed by the DM, Madhubani District after people’s protests against fraudulent and fake estimates.
Contrary to the provisions of the scheme that there will be no contractors and middlemen, and no machines used, 60% of this year’s work was done by tractors. The Party and AIALA launched a campaign against it – and there were organised protests like picketing at the work place by labourers, many of them women. At one place, workers barred the entry of tractors. Gradually it developed into a spontaneous movement, and the fact that tractors were being used drew the attention of the media. Under pressure, there was some check on the use of tractors, but later, contractors began using it at night. At one such place in Hanuman Nagar Block, news reached an AIALA meeting and 300-400 labourers, men and women together, armed with domestic weapons, rushed to the spot. The contractors fled – and the poor tractors fell victim to the people’s wrath!
All these projects are run by powerful contractors in collaboration with engineers, often at gunpoint. But where class unity of the labourers has been forged, workers have resorted to organised resistance, forcing the musclemen to beat a retreat. In Tadi Block, workers organised a protest and forced contractors to flee. Working together, they maintained an attendance register and forced the concerned officer to sign it. One instalment of wages has been paid on the basis of that muster roll. What is the most interesting aspect of the episode is that even after payment of the total wages, the lion’s share of the estimated amount was left over! In popular parlance, people call it the ‘Loot-Paat Scheme’. And people belonging to RJD, JD(U), Congress, LJP, BJP – all are involved in the loot.
The estimates provide for jobs for SC/STs and women; but women are rejected on the plea that they cannot dig and carry the load of 110 cubic feet of soil. So, to employ them is ‘loss-making’. AIALA, AIPWA and the Party protested – asking contractors not to fill fake names of women on the muster rolls. This forced them to allow women to work.
Conceptually meant to provide work for rural labour, this scheme has no provision for pucca construction jobs; and therefore no scope for any material costs. The entire expenditure is supposed to go towards wages. So, the wageitself is made the medium of loot. As per the provisions, out of a wage of Rs. 68 per day, the grain component is 8 kgs of rice(at a subsidised rate of Rs. 6.22 per kg) and Rs. 18 in cash. Payments are to be made on a weekly basis and cannot in any case be delayed for more than 15 days. But the ground reality is altogether different. Normally they are paid 5-6 kgs rice or Rs. 50 per day. A project requiring 2000 work days, is shown to have taken 6000 work days, and the wages for the remaining 4000 work days, is appropriated by contractors, engineers, bureaucrats. Workers are not publicly informed about some projects, and thus deprived of them. Even months after completion of the work, workers remain unpaid. The Party launched a campaign from Block to District Head Quarters on the issue of lesser wages and unpaid wages and gave a call for a labourers’ strike in villages on July 5. All roads were blocked for hours – and it was like a total bandh, with the whole district disturbed for some hours. This made officers, engineers panicky, and they promised payment of all wages within a week. In Pusa Block, workers demonstrated at the Block HQs with their digging implements and full wages were paid the very next day. Similar initiatives were taken in Samastipur too with expected results.
The muster roll is the most important document of this scheme. What happens is that a fake muster roll of, say, 500 workers per week is prepared for the work done by just some 100 workers, with the help of fake thumb-marks. Fake names of SC/STs and women are also filled on these rolls and duly classified. We are pressing for inspection of muster rolls at the panchayat level, through public meetings. This issue has been brought to the notice of the National Labour Monitors appointed in Districts by the Central Govt. and the Secretary for Rural Development of the State Government.
Since the scheme is based on soil-based work, it is usually stopped after June 30 because of the rains, but wages of around 60-70% workers are partially or fully pending. Workers are forced to accept cash payment against the grain component. And the rice which is meant for workers on a subsidised rate of Rs. 6.22 per kg is sold in the open market for Rs. 10-11 per kg by the contractors, engineers and dealers. The Party has decided to file a suit in the Labour Court, collecting forms filled by workers with full description of the details of unpaid wages. The demand is to punish the engineers and contractors responsible for non-payment. It has also been decided that a list of all unemployed persons, men and women both, will be submitted to officials demanding a ‘Mazdoor Card’ and guarantee of 180 days employment for them every year. Projects should be finalised and its primary estimates be prepared by the Gram Sabhas. The Commission system must stop and grain dealers should be selected by the workers from within their own panchayat. This Scheme has provided the basis for a popular mass movement, which in turn can dismantle caste barriers and prepare a new ground for class unity. In this sense, movements on this issue can prove to be a new weapon for strengthening the Communist movement in the countryside.
Lakhs of tons of food grains come to every district for a range of rural development schemes – Red Card, Antyodaya-Annapurna, Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojana, Anganbadi, Mid-day meal scheme, FFW, etc…But this grain does not reach needy people – it is either sold to markets via black-marketeers, or it merely changes sacks and labels to be sold back to the FCI via the PACS (Farmers’ Cooperatives) as ‘procurement’! Big dealers, supply department officials, DMs and politicos are involved in these huge scams. In Darbhanga, these scams became a major issue for protest, and the Administration was forced to conduct raids and file dozens of cases against corrupt dealers. Recently, we organised a night-long gherao of the house of one such dealer; when a raid was finally conducted, 3000 quintals of rice, 25000 empty sacks and many copies of seals of the Farmers’ Cooperatives were found.
Incredibly, in the flood-devastated Darbhanga, where next to no grain was harvested last year, thousands of quintals of rice were supposedly sold by farmers’ cooperatives. The grain is bought by big dealers at a subsidised rate in the name of the poor from the State Food Corporation; bags and labels are exchanged, and the same grain is sold to the FCI at a much higher rate! This is the story all over Bihar .