Sit-In Against Demonetisation

The Platform Against Neo-Liberalism is organising a sit-in at BBD Bag, Kolkata, on December 23 from 1 p.m to 4 p.m. against the demonetisation policy of the Union Government.

Women Tea Workers Come Calling

Fifty women from the closed tea gardens of Duncans recently marched into the corridors of powers in Kolkata on a two-day trip to ask for their rights and to highlight the plight of their co-workers, families and gardens.

As one of the world’s leading tea producer and exporter, India’s tea industry employs more than 1.2 million people. Two regions, Assam and Bengal, produce over 70% of India’s tea and are also home to the worst working conditions for the tea plantation workers in the country. In contrast to the images of tranquil, lush green tea gardens presented to the consumers, tea plantation workers are paid poverty wages and endure appalling working conditions. Women, who make up 70% of the workforce, are especially affected.

In this context, a more complex situation has arisen in North Bengal —15 tea estates owned by one of the premier tea companies, Duncans Industries Private Limited, are in a state of limbo. They are neither closed nor open in the usual sense of the terms, with frightening consequences for the workers on the estates. The Central government, with its eye on the Assembly elections, got the Tea Board to take over 7 of these estates — all in the same Assembly constituency — just days before the elections.

They gained from the decision as the constituency has a BJP MLA now. The losers have been the workers in these gardens, with neither Duncans nor the State government nor the Tea Board willing to take responsibility for their conditions. 

The situation has added one more chapter in the shameful history of hunger in the tea industry. Apart from hunger, and being deprived of their livelihood, all of a sudden for no fault of their own, these women are now battling with the lack of basic amenities like water and electricity, lack of any primary health or education facilities. They have been forced into harmful and insecure odd jobs available nearby. Coupled with high rates of migration by the youth and the men of the gardens, the women have been left alone to tackle threats from the local mafia and goons, which is on the rise as these mischievous groups have been encroaching on the tea garden property and resources. 

While many workers have come together to form groups and start plucking by themselves, harassment from all quarters, ranging from middlemen to contractors, is rapidly destroying both the minimum chances of these women to survive and the huge areas of tea bushes, as the lush green tea gardens turn into jungles and women become invisible subjects of injustice.

With neither the government nor the management actively setting out to solve their plight, the women took the resolve of coming all the way from the north of the state to meet and request early effective intervention by the authorities.

How W.Bengal Subsidises Tea Garden Owners, Deprives Workers

The Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity finds newspaper reports of bonus meetings in the tea sector being deadlocked due to the huge losses of owners absurd, as it does the plan by the State Government to intervene in what has traditionally been a strictly bipartite affair. This is because this year, especially, has been one when the State Government has bent over backwards to give huge concessions to the owners, by using the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and Central Government funds. The mechanism of doing this is given below.

It as an accepted practice, which has been reiterated by repeated tri-partite wage agreements, that tea garden management provides a portion of the wages of all permanent workers in the form of subsidised foodgrain.   These foodgrain are bought by the management from the market and then provided at 0.40 p per kg to all its permanent workers and their dependents.

Before the introduction of NFSA, tea garden owners were buying foodgrain at Rs 21 per kg and providing the same to the workers at 0.40 p per kg, with a subsidy of Rs 20.60 per kg. Generally, a worker with an adult wife and 2 dependent children would receive about 32 kgs of food grains per month, amounting to a subsidy of about Rs 660 per month. 

On October 30, 2016, the State Government amended the Public Distribution Supply Control Order 2013 to allow ration shops in tea gardens to be given to self help groups or the tea garden management. In at least 200 tea gardens, the management has been designated the ration shop owner making it easy for the management to replace their own foodgrain with Government-provided foodgrain after the introduction of NFSA.

The management now purchases foodgrain from the Food Department at Rs 2 per kg and is providing these to its permanent workers at 0.40 p per kg. While each worker is losing Rs 660 per month, taking an average of 1,000 workers per tea estate, each garden owner is adding Rs 6.6 lakhs per month.

This practice started in February 2016, seven months ago. Therefore, so far, each garden has saved an average of Rs4,620 per worker or Rs 46.20 lakhs per garden. This amount covers a substantial amount of the bonus demand of the workers.

The State Government is in full support of these practises. Effectively,the NFSA is now being used to provide a subsidy to the management with no benefits accruing to permanent workers and their dependents.

This action by the State Government has been taken unilaterally in consultation with the associations of employers, the Consultative Committee of Plantation Associations and its member associations. Workers or their representative unions did not at any point agree to this arrangement. Yet now, after having taken an action that supported the owners unilaterally at the expense of the workers, the State Government wants to intervene in bonus negotiations . Whether this is to increase its sphere of influence or to benefit the workers is debateable. We hope however, that good sense will prevail and the State Government will intervene on behalf of the workers.

Court Acts On Tea Workers' Plight

After a wait of six months, the Kolkata High Court finally decided to take action on a petition filed by Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity on the plight of tea workers. A division bench of the Kolkata High Court headed by the Chief Justice on 29^th July 2016 ordered the State Government, the Tea Board and the Central Government to submit action taken reports by August 12, 2016, clearly stating what they had done to relieve the misery of tea workers.

The Chief Justice expressed extreme displeasure on hunger deaths and the continuing distress of tea plantation workers, especially the plight of workers in the Duncans gardens. Incidentally, Duncans Industries Limited, one of the largest and seemingly most prosperous plantation owners in West Bengal, had abandoned 16 gardens in the Doars and Darjeeling areas in early 2015. The Central Government took over 7 of these gardens through a special notification on January 29, 2016. The Tea Board was subsequently to run these gardens, but it has taken practically no steps to re-open the gardens or to relieve the distress of the workers. The Chief Justice questioned the Tea Board, the Duncans management and the State and Central Government about the predicament of the workers, only to be informed that none of these authorities were willing to say that they were responsible for the workers.

PBKMS had filed a writ petition (WP-4225W/2016) in February 2016 before the High Court highlighting the problems of tea garden workers, arising from the present crisis in the industry as well as long term issues. Mr Bikash Bhattacharya, senior advocate, intervened on behalf of PBKMS.

The petition focused on the non-compliance by employers, State and Central Governments of the provisions of the Tea Act, Plantation Labour Act, Employees Provident Fund Act and Minimum Wages Act. It asked the court to ensure that conditions are created to ensure each tea worker gets a food intake of at least 2400 calories per day. It also asked for immediate relief for tea garden population in the form of Antodaya Anna Yojana, MGNREGA work and wages, health facilities, drinking water and electricity. Respondents were State and Central Governments, the Tea Board and employers such as Duncans India Limited.

In her first verbal order on March 12, 2016 , the Chief Justice had asked PBKMS to seek the intervention of the State Legal Services Authority through Lok Adalats to mitigate the problems of tea workers. The Chief Justice had given a time of two weeks for the petitioner to seek and receive help from the Lok Adalat process. If such relief is not received, the case was to be heard once again by the division bench at the end of the month.

PBKMS had immediately tried to get the Lok Adalat process functioning, submitting 53 complaints from over 500 complainants from 7 gardens in April 2016. However, the District Legal Services Authority is still to respond.

PBKMS’s petition is being heard together with another petition filed by the Darjeeling District Legal Aid Forum.

Please also look at the Bangla links below:

http://www.aajkaal.in/enewspaper/bistaritakhabar/4/10811

http://www.anandabazar.com/business/calcutta-high-court-asked-statement-for-the-condition-of-worker-1.445475#popup

http://www.epaper.eisamay.com/Details.aspx?id=24973&boxid=17649245

http://bangla.ganashakti.co.in/shownews.php?w=665&h=1344&year=2016&month=7&date=30&page=3&dpn=417072

'A Life Without Dignity – The Price Of Your Cup Of Tea'

As one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of tea, India’s tea industry employs more than 1,2 million people. Two regions, Assam and West Bengal, together produce over 70% of India’s tea and are also home to the worst working conditions for tea plantation workers in the country. In sharp contrast to the images of tranquil, lush, green tea gardens, with which consumers are presented, tea plantation workers are paid poverty wages and endure appalling working conditions. Women, who make up 70% of the workforce, are especially affected. This report is the outcome of a fact-finding mission conducted in Assam and West Bengal on behalf of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition(GNRTFN). It investigates and analyses allegations of serious abuses of human rights on India’s tea plantations, in particular how poor working conditions undermine the human right to food and nutrition (RTFN) and related rights. 

The full report can be accessed at the Scribid site:

What To 'Expect' From The New West Bengal Government

 BY ANURADHA TALWAR

A couple of days after the election, I was asked me to write about what I “expect” from this second term TMC government. Expectations can be both positive and negative. So, what should one write? After puzzling over this for a couple of hours, I have decided to write both — about what we hope for and what we dread from past experience. So here it goes ….

This new Government should, first of all, concentrate on creation of honest ways of earning a living. So far, the only notable job created by them in their last term was through the recruitment of 1.3 lakh young men and women as civic police. As the High Court has rightly observed, the entire process of recruitment smacked of adhocism, nepotism and corruption. MLAs and police officials are rumoured to have made packets from bribes paid by these desperate young men and women. The employment they received was ill paid, irregular and risky, and even worse, morally corrupting. These young people were made to do all the dirty work by regular police – bully innocent people into paying a bribe, demand protection money from illicit liquor dens, stand at cross roads with the traffic police to collect a couple of rupees from each lorry etcetera.

The other job available for young people was to enter the “money market” – to glibly convince people with small savings and big greed to double or triple their money in dubious schemes of chit funds. Many of these young people are now being hounded by those who have lost all their money. Some have been forced into hiding, some have committed suicide, others live in dread of the depositors — not a very good way to build the character of our youth, you will agree.

Then, of course, there was the option of joining a syndicate and extorting money from people — tolabazi — by flexing your political muscle. In Birpara, in North Benga,l they even have a special name for this illegal act, making it almost respectable – they call it GT or Goonda Tax!

If you were too decent or frightened to do all this, there was the last option of working as a migrant worker in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, leaving home and hearth, and using one’s energies to develop another part of our country instead of one’s own neighbourhood.

The TMC, in its last term, excelled in providing doles to people. The closer the election came, the larger became these freebies. The workers of Jessop have been protesting for 5-6 years, wanting re-opening of their factory and steps to stop Ruia, the owner, from stripping their factory. Just a couple of days before the Model Code of Conduct came into force, the State Government declared that it would give Rs 10,000 per month to every worker. No mention has been made of the future of the factory or of protecting its property from stealing and stripping by the owner. Bigger sops — such as shoes and cycles for all school going children (never mind if some of them already had shoes or cycles!) — were also given. Compensation for crop loss due to rain and Cyclone Aila (which took place in 2010) was also distributed just before the elections. The State Government began providing rice and wheat at Rs 2 a kg under the National Food Security Act in February 2016. The implementation of an Act that was passed in 2013 was delayed till just before the election for no compelling reason.

That this strategy was a vote getter is clear from the election results. However, let us now see the new Government spend some money on schemes which are long term and which can have a telling impact on people’s lives and development.

What we need most of all is decent employment. We do not need the Tatas and their like to invest in large-scale industry, with a repeat of Singur, with coercive displacement and minimum job creation. We need investment in agriculture-based industry, in small and medium-scale industry, in tea, in jute, in engineering, where smaller investments create more jobs and where the produce of our own state is well utilised.

We invest lakhs of our tax money in educating young people in Government schools and universities. And then we leave them to a callous job market, with frustration as their future. On the other hand, we need paramedics, vets, paralegal workers, teachers, agricultural expertise etcetera for village people. When 100 days of work has been guaranteed for those willing to do manual labour, let the State Government now guarantee work such as teaching, medical work, veterinary work, agriculture etcetera at minimum wages for our young, educated youth. Let them provide much needed services in rural areas. Why should policing, cheating and extortion be the only means for these bright young people to earn a living?

Another thing that the TMC has excelled in is in turning democracy on its head. The Panchayat Act has provisions for a Gram Sansad meeting with all voters at the booth level that legally gives them the powers twice a year to plan for their village’s development and to check on the Panchayat’s accounts. During the Left Front’s rule, many of these meetings became a farce with false signatures and adjourned meetings. During the TMC’s regime, they have not only remained a farce, they have become a rarity. This upside-down democracy has been accompanied by violence and the use of false cases to intimidate any opposition — a potent mix that was invented by the Left Front and has been perfected by the TMC.

The TMC should atone for its past sins by passing amendments to the Panchayat Act, making these Gram Sansad meetings mandatory monthly affairs without which funds for development will not be passed onto the elected Panchayat. It should also amend the law to make the right to recall a reality — let the voters have the right to call back their representative if he or she does not function properly. Let the voters be true participants in the development of their villages, instead of just pawns whose votes are manipulated once in five years through freebies and fear.

Last but not least, there remain half-finished works from the previous term — a committee for minimum wages for tea workers was formed in 2015. It still has to declare the legal, minimum wage for tea workers. Domestic workers are now a part of the employment for which the State Government must declare a legal minimum wage, but no such wage has been declared. The National Food Security Act (NFSA) remains half done – people in Purulia and temporary or bigha workers living in tea gardens have still not got ration cards. The management of tea gardens is quietly passing off Government-given rations under the NFSA as rations given by the management, and is reducing the “food grains component” of the meagre wages they pay to workers.

Theft of wages under NREGA is reaching gigantic proportions — job card holders are told by the powers–that-be (the political goons in their village) that Rs 5,000 has been deposited in their bank account, without their doing any work at all. The job card holder is asked to withdraw the total amount, keep Rs 500 for himself and give the rest to his political God. The job card holder is happy, as are the political touts in his village. The height of decentralisation of corruption, don’t you think? It is the new Government’s job to stop such corruption.

So, what we want the Government to do has been listed above. But what do we actually expect? Unless some miracle happens, we expect a continuation of extortion by ruling party members at the grass roots, with the ‘let’s get rich quick’ being the main mantra. We expect a continuation of rule through a mix of doles, violence, false cases and fear. We expect apathy and fear amongst common people, with their role in society and politics being limited to voting once in five years and keeping their mouths shut.

Though I am not a great believer in prayer, perhaps we should all pray for a miracle of good governance in the second term of this Government. Only a miracle can change things.

A Bengali version of the article was published at Ei Samay.

'W.Bengal Needs To Move From Adhocism To Food Security Act'

BY ANURADHA TALWAR

Political analysts have almost unanimously said that freebies were a major factor for the Trinamool Congress’s huge win in the 2016 Assembly elections in West Bengal. Cheap rice for almost everyone, cycles and shoes for school-going children, money for crop damage – all of these added to their votes.

Clearly enthused by this, the state’s Food and Civil Supplies Minister, Jyotipriya Mullick, has announced that a Ramzan package of chick peas, flour and sugar will be available at a subsidised rate through the public distribution system till June 24. Just in case he was accused of minority appeasement, Mullick followed it up with one more announcement: that there would be a similar package for Durga Puja later this year.

The Ramzan and Durga Puja packages are not the first of their kind. Special food packages have been announced time and again – for festivals or after disasters. The problem with these packages is that they are for short periods of time. Before ration card holders become aware of them, the schemes end. As a result, very few ration card holders actually pick up these special rations. Instead, the rations find their way into the black market with ration shop dealers acting in collusion with some Food Department officials.

Before the National Food Security Act was implemented, rice and wheat rations for Above Poverty Line families were provided in an equally ad hoc and irregular manner, and most of these food grains used to find their way to the black market as the consumer had no idea about the quantity or when rations would be given.

When ration dealers benefit

The ration dealer always reaps extra profits when quantities are broken up into many different categories and prices are not in round numbers. When this happens, consumers get confused and are easily cheated.

While the system has been simplified considerably after the implementation of the National Food Security Act, West Bengal still has five categories of ration cards and ration packages are priced oddly. For instance, in Jangal Mahal, wheat flour packets weighing 750 gm are priced at Rs 2.62 in ration shops. At a time, when it is difficult to find 50 paise or even Re 1 coins, how will customers or ration shop dealers return 38 paise as change?

What succeeds best is a rationing system with just one or two categories of cards and easily remembered and rounded-off prices and quantities.

In his Ramzan package statement, Mullick also said that “the government would continue with Rs 2 per kg rice for all during this period [emphasis added].”

Is this his way of saying that the Rs 2 rice scheme can be withdrawn later?

Under the National Food Security Act, the Centre gives the state government rice at Rs 3 per kg for 6.01 crore people. The state provides a further subsidy of Re 1 per kg and sells the rice for Rs 2 per kg. In addition to this, the state government has two cheap rice schemes under the Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojana – RKSY 1 and RKSY 2 – which cover an additional 1.7 crore people.
While the entitlements of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act are legally guaranteed, the extra Re 1 subsidy and the state’s RKSY schemes are part of Bengal’s pre-election largesse. There is no legal assurance to back these up. In fact, there are already reports of pre-election related rations being discontinued (for instance in Ward No 21 of Barasat city in North 24 Parganas.)

After the Trinamool Congress first seized power in the state in 2011, the Food and Supplies Department website of the West Bengal government for many days carried the slogan: Food For All. This was their principal promise to the people.

Streamline rations

If this is indeed what the Mamata Banerjee government wants, it should move away from the adhocism of Ramzan and Durga Puja packages and Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojanas. The government should instead pass a State Food Security Act that guarantees rice at Rs 2 per kg for all citizens.

Also, if the government is seriously concerned about malnutrition and its impact on people’s health, it should provide subsidised cooking oil and pulses in addition to cheap food grains to improve diets with proteins and fats. This has already been ordered by the Supreme Court for drought-hit areas in the Swaraj Abhiyan case.

The state government should also start taking measures to help farmers produce food. It should ensure that distress sale amongst farmers stops by arranging for doorstep procurement of food grains, pulses and oil seeds at remunerative prices. Without such measures, food production is becoming a loss-making enterprise. Distress migration from our villages to other states and frustration amongst unemployed are becoming major problems.
 
The chief minister and her food and civil supplies minister should remember that the elections are over as is the time for short-term, populist, vote-catching packages. Instead, the government should back up its cheap rice schemes with a Food Security Act, which will ensure food grains, pulses and cooking oil at subsidised prices for all. It should also invest in agriculture and give legal procurement at remunerative prices to farmers to ensure food production.

This article was originally printed at Scroll.in

Government starves NREGA of funds for second year in a row

The last financial year came to an end with 24 states facing a total of Rs 12,483 crore worth of pending payments in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The pending payments amount to over a quarter of the total expenditure incurred on the programme in these states in 2015-16. This situation has arisen due to insufficient transfer of funds from the central government to these states. The shortage of funds in these states – which include all the nine states reeling under drought - has led to millions of workers facing tremendous economic hardships due to long delays in wage payments. As per official calculations – which are a gross underestimation – 58 per cent of the total wages were not paid on time in 2015-16. Even when the workers do get paid, they will not get the compensation which is to be paid in cases of delays in wages.   

The insufficiency of funds also makes a mockery of the central government’s decision to increase the guarantee of work to 150 days a household in 2015-16 in the drought-affected states. Again as per official records, only 7 per cent of the total rural households registered in NREGA in the drought affected states got work for more than 100 days.

Apart from starving the programme of funds, the government is also not fulfilling its promises and making false claims. The Finance Ministry released only Rs 2,000 crore of the additional Rs 5,000 crore it agreed to spend on NREGA if the expenditure on the programme exceeded the allocated budget of Rs 34,699 crore in 2015-16. While announcing an allocation of Rs 38,500 crore for MGNREGA for 2016-17, the Finance Minister claimed that “if it is spent, will be the highest ever expenditure on MGNREA”. But twice in the past the expenditure on the programme has exceeded the allocation for 2016-17; Rs 39,377 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 38,552 crore in 2013-14.   

2015-16 was the second year in a row in which the NDA government capped expenditure on NREGA. By the end of 2014-15 also, nine states were left with pending wages worth Rs 1,203 crore which were made only after these states received funds for 2015-16. The same will happen this year as well; a whopping 30 per cent of the allocation for 2016-17 will be spent just in clearing pending payments from last year. With no commitment of providing additional resources if the expenditure on the programme exceeds Rs 38,500 crore in 2016-7, the under-funding of NREGA is likely to continue this year as well. These facts expose the hollowness of the central government’s claim of delivering a “pro-poor” budget for 2016-17.  

The NREGA is also being undermined by the stagnation of its wages, which are revised by the central government every year. State-wide increase in NREGA wages for 2016-17 range between 0 to 11 per cent, compared with last year’s wages (it is interesting to note that the wage increase of all the eight North Eastern states is less than 4 per cent). In many states, the NREGA wage is even lower than the minimum agricultural wage, thus failing to provide adequate economic security to rural households. For example, the NREGA wage rate of Jharkhand is Rs 45 less than its minimum agricultural wage. The central government has provided no justification for the nominal and differential rates of increase across the country. As payment of wages are now linked with the quantum of work done by them, many workers are paid even less than the paltry NREGA wages; either due to their inability to do the stipulated amount of work or due to errors in the measurement of work done by them.   

The NDA government is killing a programme whose decade-long achievements were recently hailed as a cause for “national pride and celebration” by the Union Minister of Rural Development. By failing to ensure timely work and payment and other entitlements to rural workers (such as unemployment allowance in case of non-availability of work, compensation for delayed wages, worksite facilities and timely redress of grievances), the central government is legally violating the employment guarantee act. It is contributing to the suffering of rural workers and forcing them to either migrate in distress or engage in exploitative employment.

The Right to Food Campaign demands the following:

• Immediate payment of all pending NREGA payments.
• Compensation for delayed payments to be paid automatically along with wages.
• As stated in the Ministry of Rural Development’s Master Circular on NREGA, the 1^st tranche of funds (half of the total person days agreed to in the labour budget) should be released in the month of April.
• A separate allocation to be made for the additional 50 days of employment per household approved for drought-affected states.
• Increase in the NREGA wage rate to a minimum of Rs 250, indexing the wage rate to inflation and transparency in wage revisions
• Time-bound punishment to all persons violating any entitlement of the employment guarantee act through institutionalization of social audits and other grievance redress mechanisms.

We are,

Kavita Srivastava and Dipa Sinha,

Convenors, Steering Committee of Right to Food Campaign

National Networks: Annie Raja, (National Federation for Indian Women), Colin Gonsalves , (Human Right Law Network), Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Anjali Bhardwaj, (National Campaign for People's Right to Information), Madhuresh, Arundhati Dhuru and Ulka Mahajan (National Alliance of People’s Movements), Asha Mishra and Kashinath Chatterjee (Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti), Ashok Bharti (National Conference of Dalit Organizations), Anuradha Talwar, Gautam Modi and Madhuri Krishnaswamy (New Trade Union Initiative), Binayak Sen (People’s Union for Civil Liberties), Subhash Bhatnagar (National Campaign Committee for Unorganized Sector workers), Paul Divakar and Asha Kowtal (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights), Mira Shiva, Radha Holla and Vandana Prasad (Jan Swasthya Abhiyan), Ranjeet Kumar Verma, Prahlad Ray, Praveen Kumar, Anand Malakar (Rashtriya Viklang Manch), Lali Dhakar, Sarawasti Singh, Shilpa Dey and Radha Raghwal (National Forum for Single Women’s Rights), G V Ramanjaneyulu, Kavita Kuruganthi (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture), Jashodhara (National Alliance for Maternal Health and Human Rights), Ilango (National Fishworkers Federation), Zasia, Sonam, and Noor Jehan (Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan)

State Representatives: M Kodandram, Rama Melkape, Veena Shatrughana (Andhra Pradesh), Gangabhai and Samir Garg (Chhattisgarh), Abhay Kumar (Karnataka), Suresh Sawant, Mukta Srivastava (Maharashtra), Balram and James Herenj, Gurjeet Singh, Dheeraj (Jharkhand), Ashok Khandelwal, Shyam and Vijay Lakshmi (Rajasthan), Sachin Jain (Madhya Pradesh), Joseph Patelia, Sejal Dand, Neeta Hardikar and (Gujarat), Saito Basumaatary, Raju Narzari, Bondita Acharya and Sunil Kaul (Assam), Rupesh, (Bihar), V Suresh (Tamil Nadu), Bidyut Mohanty Raj Kishore Mishra, (Orissa), Ranjeet Kumar Varma, Bindu Singh, Sabina and Richa (Uttar Pradesh), Amrita Johri, Abdul Shakeel, Vimla, Koninika Ray and Rajender Kumar  (Delhi), Fr Jothi SJ and Mr. Saradindu (West Bengal)

Individual Representatives: Harsh Mander, Manas Ranjan, Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Ankita Aggarwal, Swati Narayan, Ritu Priya and Aditya Shrivastava

Tea Workers: Court Orders Alternative Dispute Resolution

A division bench of the Kolkata High Court headed by the Chief Justice today ordered Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS) to seek the intervention of the State Legal Services Authority through Lok Adalats to mitigate the problems of tea workers.

PBKMS had filed a writ petition (WP-4225W/2016) before the High Court highlighting the problems of tea garden worker , arising from the present crisis in the industry as well as long term issues. Shri Bikash Bhattacharya, senior advocate , intervened on behalf of PBKMS.

The petition focused on the non-compliance by employers, State and Central Governments of the provisions of the Tea Act, Plantation Labour Act , Employees Provident Fund Act and Minimum Wages Act. It asked the court to ensure that conditions are created to ensure each tea worker gets a food intake of at least 2400 calories per day. It also asked for immediate relief for tea garden population in the form of Antodaya Anna Yojana, MGNREGA work and wages, health facilities, drinking water and electricity. Respondents were State and Central Governments, the Tea Board and employers such as Duncans India Limited.

The Chief Justice has given a time of two weeks for the petitioner to seek and receive help from the Lok Adalat process. If such relief is not received, the case will be heard once again by the division bench at the end of the month.

PBKMS is hopeful that the Lok Adalats will give some immediate relief to the tea garden population, but it is of the view that some of the problems, such as ignoring of the minimum wage issue by employers and the State Gsssovernment will require further serious intervention by the Court.

  

Uttam Gaine 

General Secretary

Armed Attack on Brickfield Workers

Ashanghatit Khetra Shramik Sangrami Manch (AKSSM) strongly condemns the armed attack on the struggling workers of brickfields in Hasnabad of Basirhat Sub-Division in District 24 Parganas (N) and subsequent police inaction.

On Monday morning (22nd February 2016) at 8.30 a.m. a peaceful rally of the workers was attacked by the hired goons of the owners of many brick-fields with firearms and country made bombs, leading to injuries to several of the agitating workers. Across the state, brick-field owners are systematically violating all existing labour laws, including that of minimum wage. Workers are being forced to live in sub-human conditions. To protest against this, workers of eleven brick-fields under the banner of Shramajibi Samanwaya Committee (SSC), a federation of workers in different micro and small scale industries of Basirhat sub-division, and an active member of AKSSM, unitedly intensified their movement recently to achieve their demand of minimum wage, as per the law of the land.

Backing the assault was Shahanur Mondal, a brickfield owner, who is also a cattle smuggler and a feared local mafia. He is also an Upapradhan from the TMC. Also present were owners of various brickfields, who financed the attack. Chief among these was Ashu Mondal, a brickfield owner and a BJP councillor.

The attack, where bombs and guns were used to intimidate and injure the workers, was fought off by the workers. They also managed to grab once of the attackers and hand him over to the police. Despite this and despite an FIR, the administration has been inactive. It has once again been exposed that the police and the administration are in unholy alliance with the defaulting industry owners.  In response to the inaction on part of police and administration, the workers held protest marches in the morning and evening.

In the meantime, the SDO had already scheduled a tripartite meeting on 24th February 2016 for a settlement of wages in the brick fields in the subdivision. In Shramajibi Samanwaya Committee's experience, all such meetings in the past have ended in the shameful capitulation by the administration, including the Labour Department, and some unions to the owner's demand to pay much less than the minimum wage. SSC's movement has been aimed at condemning such compromises on the part of the Government, where the authority responsible for enforcing minimum wages never enforces the same , but instead actively allows agreements below the minimum wage.

Shramajibi Samanwaya Committee has given the police 24 hours to arrest the attackers, failing which they will begin their protest from noon on 23rd February 2016, starting with blocking of train movements tomorrow morning at Hasnabad railway station for an indefinite period. They will also put forward their demand for minimum wages.

AKSSM calls upon the police administration to immediately arrest the culprits. It also demands that the long-standing issue of minimum wages for brick-field workers be resolved once and for all, with strict punitive action against all owners who do not pay the minimum wage.

AKSSM further calls upon all right thinking people to extend their support to the legitimate struggle of the SSC workers in all ways possible.

Swapan Ganguly, Somnath Ghosh (Convenors)

'Implement Maternity Benefit In Rationing System'

105 representatives from all districts of West Bengal belonging to 35 people’s organisations, NGOs and unions of the Right to Food and Work Campaign West Bengal met on 22^nd and 23^rd February 2016 at Barasat to discuss the issue of food security and the steps taken by the State Government recently to implement and supplement the National Food Security Act. The following is the statement that they have all agreed to release from this meeting.

Responding to the escalating violence and tensions around the issue of the new digital ration cards, the Chief Minister and the Food Minister have stated that everyone will be given rations. While welcoming such a statement, we would like them to now back it up with sufficient funds, food grains and administrative action to ensure that everyone does get cheap rice and wheat.

In a country where reports of hunger and malnutrition are an everyday occurrence, the universal right to food is the only way forward. From our discussions over two days, it is clear that the poorest have either got no rations or have been made part of the RKSY II which provides only 2 kg of food grains per head at the hugest cost, while many rich people have been declared Antodaya or the poorest of poor and are getting the largest amount of rations. Nepotism and faithfulness to the ruling party have put many non-deserving people on the lists while many beggars, homeless people, Adivasis and other deserving categories have been left out. In addition, things have been complicated with 5 categories of cards each of which has different entitlements.

In addition, we have also found that the National Food Security Act (NFSA) remains only partially implemented. Most importantly, the maternity benefit entitlement of Rs.6000 for all pregnant women that has been given under Section 4(b) of the Act has not been implemented at all so far. To stop leakages, the Act has provisions for vigilance committees, social audit, District Grievance Redressal Officers and efficient systems of complaints through help lines, web sites etcetera. None of these are properly in place in the State as yet.    Moreover, in order to actually have food security, this meeting feels that there is the need to go far beyond the NFSA. Therefore we demand

·         Immediate implementation of “Food for All” with only one category of at least 7 kgs of food grains per head at Rs. 2 for the entire population of the State ( by our calculations this involves only an additional amount of Rs. 2896 crores or  2.6% of the total funds available with the State Government)

·         Exclusion of the very rich as per exclusion criteria that are already there in SECC or as per the their voluntary declaration for exclusion

·         Immediate implementation of the maternity benefit entitlements given in NFSA

·         Immediate and effective implementation of all grievance redressal and transparency mechanisms provided for in the Act

·         Ensuring that tea garden management continues to provide rations to the tea garden workers, which is their accepted right as workers, and does not replace these with the Government’s rations under NFSA, which is the right of the tea garden population as citizens of the country

·         Ration shops must be handed over to SHGs and cooperatives , with the stoppage of corrupt ration dealers

·         Gradual expansions of the rationing system to provide other nutritional essentials like pulses and oil at subsidised rates, along with increasing the food grains allocation to the full nutritional requirement of 14 kgs per head.

·         Emphasis on local procurement and local storage of food grains, with such facilities in every GP

·         Emphasis on revival and support for safe and organic agriculture , so that agriculture and development is for food first

The meeting also declares the following as its future programme:-

·         On March 8^th, International Women’s Day, a programme with local meetings and signature campaign centred on immediate implementation of maternity benefits in NFSA.

·         Lobbying by village Right to Food groups and at all other levels in the State to get all parties to include our demands in their manifestos.

·         A people’s convention of Right to Food village groups in July to put forward our demands on the Right to Food to the new Government, preceded by trainings, conventions and meetings in all districts.

Anuradha Talwar              Debojyoti Chakraborty                        Father Jyoti S J

Response to W.Bengal Chief Minister On Digital Ration Cards

Responding to the escalating violence and tensions around the issue of the new digital ration cards, the Chief Minister, Smt Mamata Banerjee has stated that everyone will be given rations. While welcoming such a statement, we would like her to now back it up with sufficient funds, food grains and administrative action to ensure that everyone does get cheap rice and wheat.

In a country where reports of hunger and malnutrition are an everyday occurrence, the universal right to food is the only way forward. Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity has always opposed targeting. As a system of choosing beneficiaries for food and other schemes, it has led to huge inclusion and exclusion errors, with the deserving being left out and the affluent and politically powerful cornering all benefits. The lists that have been prepared for distribution of digital ration cards suffer from many such problems, especially as no public participation, in terms of consultation with Gram Sansads and Ward Sabhas was done while preparing these lists. They are therefore full of errors. Nepotism and faithfulness to the ruling party have put many non-deserving people on the lists while many beggars, homeless people, Adivasis and other deserving categories have been left out. In addition things have been more complicated with 5 categories of cards each of which has different entitlements.

We call on the State Government to allow for only one category under which all people who want rations will get rice and wheat at Rs.2 per kg. As the per head requirement for food grains as per ICMR norms is 14 kg per adult per month, this has been our demand throughout. If it is not able to provide this quantity immediately, we demand that the State Government should ensure half this quantity of 7 kg per head (the Antodaya Anna Yojana quantity) for all citizens as a start.

The State Government was already spending Rs.1,930 crores on cheap food before the implementation of National Food Security Act. It has now plans to spend another Rs.2300 crores to provide everyone under the NFSA with Rs.2 rice and for the two state schemes. By our calculations, extending a uniform system of 7 kg of food grains to the 3 crores uncovered by NFSA would require another Rs.2896 crores. The 2015-16 State budget projects revenue of Rs.46,500 crores, while the Centre has provided the State Government with another Rs.63,578 crores under the 14^th Finance Commission funds. Food for All thus requires only an extra 2.6 % of this total amount.

Getting food to everyone also requires administrative back up in terms of tagging people to ration shops, giving everyone ration cards, arranging for storage etc. We demand that all such steps be taken to make the TMC slogan of “Food For All” (a slogan that is also endorsed by all Left parties ) a reality.

Uttam Gayen, General Secretary

Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity