October in Bihar is a month of festivals, but the mood in this village comprising 10,000 people in Kudhani block was far from celebratory. Hundreds of workers sat on a 32-day dharna in the village panchayat bhawan, festivals forgotten, their only demand being wages. Despite visits by district officials, what came of the protests were only cases slapped against four protestors.
There are over 300 workers in this village who have worked under MGNREGA; most of them today are jobless. Since the change in government, the scheme that sustained them, they said, has collapsed.
“If work and payment get regularised, there are hundreds more in the village who are ready to be enrolled as MNREGA workers,” said Sanjay Sahni, who organises MNREGA workers and fights for their cause. “But because of the lack of it, many of them have migrated to the big cities.” The big cities he speaks of are Mumbai and Delhi where most of the impoverished have gone to earn a decent livelihood. And over the last one year, those who haven’t been able to leave the village have not been getting work. Even if they have, payments have eluded them.
In 2014-15, Madina Begum, 50, got only 40 days of work out of 100 days, for which she was paid only Rs.130, a delayed six months later. “This year I did not get a single day work,” she told The Hindu.
Ram Lal Paswan said he got only 14 days of work in the same period, but got no payment. But, the programme officer, he said, insists that he has been paid. “I don’t know where the money has gone,” Mr. Paswan shrugged. Like Ms. Begum, he has also not got a single day’s work in the 2015-16.
The stories of Damodar Prasad, Lakhi Devi and several other MNREGA workers of the village are similar. Few have got even a single day’s work this year under the scheme; not one has received payment.
“The situation was not like this two years ago,” said Mr. Sahni. “In 2012-13 and 2013-14, we were getting 100 days of work and even payment was regular.”
From October 2014-15, payment under the scheme has gone up from Rs. 162 to Rs. 177, but the increase is moot because both work and payment have become irregular or absent, Mr. Sahni said.
He also said that under the scheme there was provision for unemployment compensation under which half of the payment — of 50 days at least — has to be given to the workers if no work is given to job-seekers. “That comes to around Rs. 8,800 in a year to each of the workers and we’ll now start fighting for it,” he said to loud applause from the assembled villagers.
But why have the villagers not got a single day’s work this year?
“Because of a prolonged strike by the Panchayat Rojgar Sevaks demanding more salary and regularisation of their job,”Jitendra Kumar, programme officer of Kudhani block, told The Hindu. A PRS, an important official link between the government and MNREGA workers, gets a montly salary of Rs. 5,400 and there is one PRS in every Panchayat of the State.
Mr. Kumar said the achievement rate of MNREGA work in Bihar in 2015-16 has been just 0.1 per cent until now. “The discriminatory approach of the government and administrative lapses have made MNREGA a flop show in the State.” he said. “The government doesn’t seem interested for political reasons,” he added. “Otherwise, there is no scheme like this through which the poor benefit effectively.”
