Maternity Entitlements: A Case Of Too Little, Too Late

A PIB press release today states that the Government of India intends to initiate universal maternity entitlements as per the National Food Security Act from 1 January 2017. However, the figures don’t add up. India’s birth rate is around 20 per 1,000. The current population is around 130 crore. So the number of births per year must be around 26 million.

Thus, at Rs 6,000 per birth, universal maternity entitlements (assuming, optimistically, that 10% births are already covered under the formal sector) would cost Rs 14,000 crore per year.

However, in the plan presented in the PIB press release, the central government’s contribution for the next three financial years is only Rs 7,348 crore, or Rs 2,449 crore per year. With a 60:40 ratio for centre/state contributions, this means a total of barely Rs 4,000 crore per year.

This is a fraction of what is actually required, even assuming that only the first two births are covered by maternity entitlements.”Women’s organizations and the Right to Food Campaign called upon Prime Minister Modi to make maternity entitlements truly universal instead of the extremely weak announcement of cash benefits for pregnant and breastfeeding women on 31^st December 2016. In a country like India where more than 90% of women are outside of organised sector employment, state-provided maternity support becomes a crucial tool for protecting the health of women and their babies.

Kavita Srivastava of People’s Union for Civil Liberties stated, “The Prime Minister on 31 December 2016 has announced a cash entitlement of Rs. 6000 for pregnant women across the country; presenting it as an original idea and also as if it is somehow to mitigate the hardships caused by demonetisation. However this is far from the truth. This entitlement was unanimously passed by the parliament in Septemebr 2013 under the National Food Security Act, but the government had so far not provided the budgetary allocations for the same.”

“Maternity entitlements are women’s rights, and not a reward for good behaviour,” said Jashodhara Dasgupta of SAHAYOG, a women’s organization. With the passing of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, a universal maternity entitlement of at least Rs. 6000 has been a legal entitlement for all pregnant and lactating women in the country.

Dipa Sinha, of the Right to Food Campaign stated, “The government, in complete violation of the Act, has failed to provide the required budget for its implementation. What is currently on the ground in 53 districts is the 2010 pilot scheme IGMSY (Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana) that provides Rs 6000 provided pregnant women meet certain criteria .

Sudeshna Sengupta of the Alliance for Early Childhood Development mentioned that despite repeated demands by women and civil society organisations  across the country  to provide universal maternity benefits in tune with the NFSA, neither the coverage nor the budget allocated for the scheme has been enhanced, despite the Supreme Court asking for an explanation for the delay in implementation.

Sejal Dand of the Mahila Kisaan Adhikar Manch (MAKAAM) expressed the major concern regarding the inequity in the maternity entitlements available through the MBA (1961) amendments passed by the Rajya Sabha in the december 2016 session of the parliament which guarantees 26 weeks of paid leave to women in the formal sector which is only 5% of women workers in this country.  For the largest number of women workers- namely women farmers and agricultural labour, we will now  have a universal entitlement of a minimal 6000/- rupees.  

Denial of this minimalist entitlement to women who though no choice of theirs bear children under the age of  19 years of age or have multiparous pregnancies will deprive the most at risk women, largely from the   Dalit, tribal and poorest social groups from this essential support. There is an urgent need to ensure that technology is used for ensuring entitlements are made easily and timely available, rather than become one more hurdle to exclude the poorest"

The organizations expressed concern that the government already seeks to restrict coverage by imposing conditionalities on access to this entitlement; similar to the IGMSY. The Prime Minister in his speech mentioned that this is for women who have institutional deliveries and immunise their children. Dr. Vandana Prasad of the Working Group for Children Under 6 pointed out that such conditionalities are likely to further exclude the most marginalised women from much needed financial support, especially given poor availability of good quality maternity services.

The demand for universal unconditional maternity entitlements will be taken by campaigns throughout the year 2017 by the collective that issued this statement, including:Right to Food Campaign, Alliance for Early Childhood Development, National Alliance for Maternal Health and Human rights, Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch, women’s groups, trade unions and a number of other organisations working for the rights of unorganized sector women workers based in small-scale production, construction and brick-kiln workers, domestic workers, agricultural labourers and tribal women collecting forest produce, and so forth.

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.