The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Issues in the Food for Work Programme

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Friday, Jun 03, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Issues in the Food for Work Programme

Brinda Karat

There are major infirmities in the way the Food for Work Programme has been designed and is being implemented. It should not be allowed to become another source of exploitation.

THE EXPANDED Food for Work Programme (FFWP) launched by the United Progressive Alliance Government in October 2004 in 150 backward districts of the country has the potential to ameliorate at least to some extent the acute rural distress that has been intensified by neo-liberal policies. However, visits to worksites in three backward districts of Yeotmal, Hingoli and Nanded in Maharashtra as part of a Communist Party of India (Marxist) campaign on related issues reveal a horrific picture of inhuman conditions at the worksite, extremely low piece rate wages for hard manual labour and, most shocking of all, women doing a nine-hour day of heavy work at public worksites entirely without payment.

This project, unlike other employment schemes, is financed fully by the Central Government and is entirely driven by Central guidelines. But they are so framed that they have become a hindrance to effective working and need urgent revision.

The first question is that of allocation. According to the guidelines, a minimum of 25 per cent of wages is to be paid in cash and the rest in foodgrains. However, while the Central guidelines state that the Ministry will pay the Food Corporation of India for the foodgrains at the Below Poverty Line (BPL) rate of Rs. 5 a kg of wheat, the Ministry, while allocating the foodgrains, calculates it at the Above Poverty Line (APL) rate of Rs. 10 a kg, thus halving the amount provided.

This dichotomy is also reflected in the calculation of wages. The guidelines state that a maximum of 5 kg of foodgrains is to be given to the workers. But this can only constitute 75 per cent of the minimum wage if it is calculated at APL rates. In other words, those workers holding the BPL or Antyodaya cards, who should get foodgrains at half or one-third the APL price, are expected to sell their labour in exchange for much higher-priced foodgrains. This exploitation embedded in the guidelines scales down the actual allocation to much less than claimed. Fortunately, in Maharashtra as perhaps in other States, despite the Central guidelines, the State Government is calculating the foodgrains given as wages at BPL prices, and provides wages in the 50:50 ratio of cash to foodgrains.

In Maharashtra, the money for the scheme was received only in January and projects were finalised and sanctioned only around end-April. The project is being fully implemented only in a few districts, even out of those selected. For example, in the Wani tehsil of Yeotmal district the FFWP was found to have been implemented in only two villages out of 300. The authorities were originally told that the allocation was Rs. 2 crore, and they made plans accordingly. Several months later, it was discovered that the amount was actually Rs. 22 crore! This "mistake" meant that thousands of workers had been denied the benefits which should have accrued to them.

No accretion in work opportunities

In other States also, the delay in allocations and the consequent non-utilisation of funds have held up the working of the entire project. As a result, out of an allocation of Rs. 4,500 crore for the current fiscal year only Rs. 120 crore had been released by mid-May, presumably because the stipulation that 60 per cent of utilisation of funds from the first instalment must be confirmed has not been met by most States. So there has been little or no accretion in work opportunities in rural India through the FFWP. This underlines the total lack of political will to implement a programme that could help the poor.

The scheme, which runs parallel to other employment schemes, actually includes only the worst features of different schemes. Conversely, the better features of different schemes have been excluded in the FFWP. For example, whereas the SGRY specifically has a provision for employing minimum 30 per cent of women the FFWP programme has no such provision. The FFWP is highly centralised and the District Collector is the nodal agency to prepare the Plan with the help of any professional agency. Thus the crucial issue of people's participation in planning and project implementation has been ignored.

The rigidity and centralisation of the scheme, including in the type of work permitted, has had negative consequences on its working and in the absence of any defined principles of accountability, it encourages corrupt practices. We found several cases of non-existent projects that had been funded. The guidelines contain no provisions to give workers the opportunity to register for work on a project. Nor is it mandatory for the administration to inform the population of the work being planned. We came across numerous cases where families wanted work but they had no access to the information, which is a form of denial of the right to work.

At the same time, not a single of the more positive guidelines such as setting up of local monitoring committees, time-bound payment of wages and so on has been implemented in the three districts. In fact, at the worksites we visited there had been no payment for two weeks and sometimes even several months.

Conditions in a project on the side of a road in the Kosmet area of Nanded district were typical of the worksites we visited. This project involved the restoration of a canal which required heavy earthwork with fairly rocky soil. The workers — around 60 men and women in equal numbers — were from Dongargaon village, which according to the Government register, had many ongoing works. The workers laughed when we showed them the list — would we be here 20 km away from home if our own village had work? The desperate need for employment was reflected in their acceptance of the most inhuman work conditions including the fact that they were doing hard manual labour in 46 degrees temperature. There were at least 25 children at the site but there was no crèche. For water, they had to walk at least a kilometre.

The impoverishment of the small peasantry in this region was also clearly reflected. While a majority of workers in Kosmet were landless families, at other worksites, as many as 60 per cent of those we met had land holdings of 4-6 acres. These were mainly families belonging to the Scheduled Tribes. They said that the lack of irrigation facilities, the low prices offered for their produce, huge debts they had incurred due to the rising cost of electricity, water, fertilizers and seeds had forced them to look for work at the Food for Work sites.

Low piece rates

Whereas the national minimum wage rate is around Rs. 66 in the FFWP in Maharashtra, the daily wage has been kept at the same rate as the EGS which is just Rs. 47. But the most shocking aspect is the extremely low piece rates given for the work. The rates for one cubic metre of earthwork in Maharashtra is just Rs. 19.90. In the manual for government contractors, the same amount of work is listed at the rate of Rs.47.30. According to the workers, in one day around two or 2.5 cubic feet can be dug, which means that they are earning less than even the low minimum wage doing hard manual labour.

Women carry the earth dug by men. Usually they have to take the earth four to five metres away. One cubic metre equals about 1565 kg of mud which means the women are lifting over 3000 to 3500 kg of mud a day. The women say they lift about 30 kg a time 100 times a day. And what are they paid? Not a single paisa. The Maharashtra Government has listed only digging of the earth as a job, but the male workers say that if they were to dig and also lift the earth, they would be able to do only half the amount of work. So each male worker brings along a woman member of his family. The women lift the earth and the Government gets the work of two workers for one-third the cost of one.

It is only when the project requires that the earth be lifted and dumped 10 metres away from the site that it is paid work, again at very low rates. The women who are working for free on the sites would have received at least Rs. 300 for the 3000 kg lifted according to the prevailing rates for coolies. The women workers we met — frail, clearly highly anaemic, their daily diet only jowar bhakris and chilli chutney — are forced to do the heaviest of manual labour without the work being even recognised as being essential to the process and without any payment.

All this points to major infirmities in the way the project has been designed and is being implemented. Therefore, urgent course correction is required including militant mobilisation of the people. The FFWP cannot be allowed to become another source of exploitation of the labour of the poor.

(The writer is member, Polit Bureau, Communist Party of India - Marxist.)

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