Spectre of debt amid loss of job looms large in Dharmapuri’s villages

The State government’s cash relief of ₹4,000 for every ration card has cushioned the impact of joblessness briefly.

June 03, 2021 01:36 pm | Updated 01:50 pm IST - DHARMAPURI:

Muthammal feeds her goat in M. Thanda village in Eriyur block in Dharmapuri on June 3, 2021.

Muthammal feeds her goat in M. Thanda village in Eriyur block in Dharmapuri on June 3, 2021.

The little black goat hungrily drank cow’s milk from the feeding bottle Muthammal held to its mouth. Muthammal had just bought half a litre of milk from her neighbour Ambigai, who stood by holding her aluminium milk can, measuring to refill the feeding bottle.

“She [Muthammal] bought this kid as a new-born from someone, who needed money. She will raise it, and then sell it to make some money,” Ambigai explained the economics of goat-rearing. “Sometimes it may go up to ₹10,000, if she is lucky. As Muthammal fed the motherless kid, one of her three adult goats, threw a tantrum by bumping her from behind. She would take them to graze around this M.Thanda village in the dry Eiryur block of Dharmapuri.

As they wait, Muthammal informs Ambigai that she withdrew the last of the MGNREGS work payment of ₹1,200 this week. That was the six-day work wage credited for March that she saved up until now. “There is no more work now,” says Muthammal. It has come down to three weeks work a year now with more people and less work, never 100 days, says Ambigai.

In the rural milieu, between the last of MGNREGS job work payment, the State government’s COVID-19 cash relief of ₹4,000 for every ration card, with dry rations, the village economy is tottering on bare minimal existence without any sustenance during the ongoing pandemic-induced lockdown.

Dairy trouble

On Wednesday, Ambigai, who supplies an average of 5 litres daily to the local milk cooperative society diverted some milk to Muthammal’s goat. Amibigai needed the money.

While the Society procures at ₹22 per litre, she can sell it in the open at ₹40 per litre. “But, the society’s is a steady income. I know they will buy it. Here, no one can afford milk every day. They will buy one day and not for 10 days. I can’t lose the Society.” Though, the Society has not paid from March onwards, she’s certain they will clear the dues. “But on days like these, when someone asks, I sell it.”

But, Ambigai is unaware of a little detail since her payments are yet to come. The Societies have cut down the procurement price by ₹3 payable to the milk suppliers like her.

In the neighbouring block of Palacodde in Dodaaradhanahalli village, Muniamma, in her 50s, is worried by this slash. Only this Pongal, Muniamma bought a cow. “I borrowed ₹50,000 from my Sangam (SHGs), bought a cow for ₹40,000. The society paid ₹22 per litre, but now they only pay ₹19, saying milk prices have come down.” She sells 10 litres/day to the society, which meant a loss of ₹900 per month.

As part of its electoral promise, the DMK government slashed the price of Aavin milk by ₹3 procured by the State-run milk cooperative federation from the farmers. But, this concession is also subsidised by women like Ambigai and Muniamma.

“How will I pay back my loan? I have to pay ₹2,500 per month (SHG), and spend on fodder of ₹ 1,100 per bag (two bags a month)”, she says. If this troubles her waking hours, the exclusion of those above 50 years from MGNREGS works citing the pandemic is making her despondent. “It is true, they won’t give us work any more? Where are we to go?”

Across villages, as women go about their daily chores, the spectre of debt due to the SHGs make up the conversations. The women were also given loans knowing that they will find work and that the men were out there working vouching for the repayment, says Ambigai. But, now the men have returned from their jobs. “Without men, we ate what was there, not needing to cook three times. Now, the rations and the gas always falls short,” says Ambigai, whose husband employed in a snacks unit returned.

The State government’s cash relief of ₹4,000 for every ration card has cushioned the impact of joblessness briefly.

In a predominantly rain-fed, drought prone landscape like Dharmapuri, the spurts of summer showers brought with it seasonal farm work for the majority landless on the marginal landholdings of the few in the village. This year that was not to be. Given the drying up of cash inflows in the village economy, those with meagre landholdings have fallen back on family labour, with the return of the men, and lack of cash inflow to pay wages.

R. Prabhu was steadying up a big sack of groundnut between his legs on his moped outside his house in Chinnaperamanur village in Pennagaram taluk. He was doing masonry works earning ₹800 per day depending on the size of the buildings, until he returned to the village after the spike in cases and the resultant lockdown. Prabhu’s family owns 1 acre on which they raised paddy last year, ragi and groundnuts thereafter. “What we grow we keep it for our own use, not needing to buy anything. Sometimes, we sell if there is excess,” his mother pitches in. “We can’t pay wages now. Our family members are our farmhands.”

As one drives through the villages, stray construction works on houses with hollow blocks are being carried out by the family members.

Loan waivers for some

“They (farmers) will start coming for loans once this lockdown is over,” predicts, K. Periasamy, the secretary of the Primary Agricultural cooperative society, Jarthalav, from across his table overlooking the campus of Paaparapatty Cooperative Sugar mill in Palacodde taluk. The Society lends crop loans to landholding farmers, apart from jewel loan and loans to women’s SHGs.

“We will not lend a rupee if there are outstanding loans. Every year, there are outstanding loans because farmers say the ‘cane is lost, crop is burnt’. But, this year, the State government had waived Agricultural Cooperative Society farm loans and SHG loans ahead of the elections. “Before they could issue the G.O for jewel loan waiver, elections came. So, the status of jewel loans is unclear,” he says.

For the majority of women’s SHGs serviced by the regional rural banks and nationalised banks, this loan waiver to the Societies-lent SHGs has left them feeling deprived.

“Society lends only to those with land. Benefits are accrued to those with land and the rest of us don’t get anything,” surmised Vijayshanthi in Paruvadhanapalli village in Pennagaram block, who has ₹38,000 loaned by her Sangam (SHG) and a jewel loan from a bank.

“How does one register with a society to get the waiver?” asks J. Kalpana, as she cut fodder in the 33 cent land her family owns. This fodder would not last three weeks for the two cattle we have, she added. Kalpana heads the SHG in M.Thanda village in Eriyur block. Her SHG borrowed ₹3 lakhs from a nationalised bank and shared it between its 20 members. Now for two months, the women had a tacit agreement not to ask each other for interest. “Two months, no weekly savings or interest payment.” But soon, the bank will ask Kalpana and she will have to ask her members.

Shankar had been ducking from creditors as much as he could ever since he returned to the village from the stone crushing unit he went to in Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh. “The agent took me before the lockdown, but no raw materials came and they brought us back after 20 days work and no pay.” He was still reeling under the burden of repaying a rice chit (monthly/weekly informal chit scheme to buy good rice just in time for Pongal). “I borrowed ₹8,000 and ended up repaying ₹30,000 for interest defaults,” he says.

“You know it hurts, when the wife says, ‘What man are you, if you can’t buy a little something for the children to eat.’ ”

This inability to provide a snack for the children was a refrain in the conversations with the women in the villages.

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