HARYANA 

AIAWU Monitors Implementation Of NREGA 

O P Suthar

THE All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) has begun its campaign to monitor and ensure the implementation of the NREGA in district after district of the country. On June 22, 2006 over 500 people from some 32 villages collected in Sirsa district of Haryana, in a convention organized to take stock of the implementation of NREGA. It was addressed by AIAWU joint secretary Suneet Chopra, AIAWU Haryana unit president Ram Kumar Behbalpuria  and AIAWU district convenor Raj Kumar Shekhupuria, among others. The speakers highlighted the grievances with regard to the functioning of the Act.

For example, the villagers of Nagoki complained that only Rs 90 was paid for digging out over 100 mounds of clay for tanks, when the government rate was over Rs 95. While this was two days work, the payment was being made only for one day. Clearly the government rates of payments were grossly unfair and exploitative. The people of Fatehpuria reported the clay was so hard that it had to be watered the night before for it to be dug out the next day. No payment was made for this. The agricultural labourers of Bappa village reported that there was no systematic rate of payment for the work. A sum of Rs 75 per day was given to dig one tank while Rs 90 was paid for another, neither of which is the proper wage. There were also complaints that work was being refused if there were no photographs on the work card; in many villages work cards had not been given. There were no first aid facilities, no drinking water and no tents for shade as required by law. It is evident that pradhans were arbitrarily calling people who would not demand the proper implementation of the law and were assigning any sort of work at any rate to a limited number of people.

The AIAWU unit called a meeting of over 500 people to protest against this. They demanded that every village in the district be given work under the Act immediately. They also sought work cards for all those who were applying. They wanted an enquiry into the amount of work given for a day’s wages, into whether the payment of the full government rate was being made and into the non-implementation of safety and other provisions. They also called for the building of lavatories for women, for the provision of BPL ration cards to all agricultural labourers, the proper functioning of the PDS and for house-sites for agricultural labour.

The speakers in this meeting stressed the necessity of constantly monitoring and ensuring that the NREGA functioned properly. They called for action to ensure that elected peoples planning committees would be constituted so that peoples participation in planning is there in keeping with the provision of Article 243 (d) and (e) of the Indian Constitution. These mass actions and gatherings must strive to educate people to struggle for their right to employment.

After the mass meeting, the protestors marched to the district secretariat, where the district commissioner left his office before they reached. The protestors gheraoed the office of the deputy commissioner on the first floor and discussed their demands with him. The deputy commissioner promised to ensure that job cards would be given to all and work would be started in all the villages but that people should come forward and demand it be done. The daily wage of over Rs 95 would be paid but that the work load reduction was a matter for the state government to decide and our complaint would be forwarded to them. With regard to first aid boxes, drinking water and tents, he promised that they would be provided immediately wherever the work was underway. He also promised that apart from digging ponds, work like cleaning canals, tree plantation and other tasks would be undertaken under NREGA. He also promised to speed up the construction of public lavatories for women, the provision of BPL cards by the requisite authorities and to ensure the proper functioning of the PDS. Over 100 individual complaints were also given to him which he promised to pass on to relevant departments.

The main lesson of the agitation was that without the vigilance and active monitoring of the implementation of the NREGA by mass organisations whose membership was concerned with the success of this legislation, not much would be achieved. The second was that the authorities must be forced to explain policies affecting the people directly to them rather than through intermediaries. The third was that nothing of any permanence would be achieved without constant struggle and vigilance.

It was proposed that the AIAWU village units would ensure the proper implementation of the Act and would bring concrete complaints of non-compliance to the authorities in the months of July and August. A signature campaign to collect 10 lakh signatures would be conducted at the same time on BPL and other demands including the extension of NREGA to other districts of Haryana and the passage of comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour. The signature campaign would culminate with a five-day hunger strike if these demands were not met. The state president of the union also announced that its state conference would be held on September 27 and 28 in the district to give the mass upsurge of agricultural labourers a proper organisational shape in  the state as a whole.