AIAWU To Press For Rural Work Schemes

THE All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) has welcomed the reported decision of the central government of introduce the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2004 in parliament by the end of the year. The AIAWU considers this Act a dire necessity today as the policies pursued by various governments since 1991 have led to a decline in the government’s share in rural investment to a third of what it was in the 1980s. This has led to a decline of 3 per cent in rural employment –– for the first time in the history of independent India.

The AIAWU statement, issued on September 21 by its joint secretary Suneet Chopra, pointed out that the number of days of work available in agriculture came down from 123 in a year in the 1980s to 100 in the 1990s and is no more than 70 today. This has led to distress migration, hunger and even the sale of children and suicides as never before in the past few decades. This is because successive governments have failed to enact a legislation defining the working conditions and offering protection to agricultural labour. The proposed Act will at least give minimal protection to the most hapless 100 million souls in our rural areas.

The AIAWU, however, feels that the UPA government must immediately reverse the following decisions/policies undertaken by the previous BJP-led NDA government: reckless import of machinery reducing employment further, the removal of quantitative restrictions on agricultural imports, low import duties, the opening up of the seed market and the destruction of fertiliser production in India, and dismantling of the public distribution system (PDS).

Given the fact that the kharif output is likely to be 7.2 per cent less than last year, at 104 million tonnes instead of 112.04 million tonnes, and that the BJP and its allies are stalling the parliament proceedings, the AIAWU has demanded that the government start the 150 district projects of guaranteed employment in December through an ordinance to prevent the situation from developing into a serious condition akin to the famines of the 1940s.

The AIAWU has already taken up a programme of agitation on the issues of employment, for a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour, for PDS strengthening, and against oppression of the scheduled castes, tribes and minorities. The AIAWU agitation has elicited a goad response in Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala. The organisation plans to undertake powerful agitations, jointly and independently, to ensure that December does not turn into a month of even more distress than today. The implementation of the employment guarantee programme and other rural employment schemes must begin before man-made famine conditions are upon us. The UPA government must avoid doing too little too late.