No jobs on your cards

Kodhur, a village in the Srirampur gram panchayat area of Patna district, has a large number of Dalits, especially members of the Majhi community. There are about 100 households and their main occupation is as agricultural labourers on the fields owned by upper caste Hindus. During ‘labour days' they get Rs 40 a day and half-a-kilo of grain.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) promises 100 days of employment to at least one adult member of the household. Are the villagers aware of this? Says Sanju Devi, "We have job cards. My husband got his card about two years ago." However, the maximum number of entries done on the card was 14 days in two years. Her husband, Raja Majhi, explains, "We worked in December last year, but that was not mentioned in the card. But we did get our money."

Their cards reveal that they should get Rs 83 a day if they work under the NREGA. However, most locals claim that they are not paid according to the rates prescribed by the government. Another villager, 52-year-old Lakhichand Majhi, complains, "Sometimes we get Rs 55 a day, sometimes Rs 60 or 65. If we question the contractors, they threaten us and say this is all we'll get. We still depend on wage labour in the fields for the sahibs (upper caste landlords). We don't have money. How can we protest? Even the mukhiya refuses to help."

Badhar Majhi, who received Rs 80 a day, which he considers to be correct, says, "There are different contractors who are given contracts by the mukhiya. There is a difference in rates for those who are chosen by the mukhiya and those who are not."

Women and children are the worst sufferers in such ‘unequal' ground conditions. Normally, one household consists of at least four or five children. Asha Devi, who has six children, says, "We don't get work under the NREGA. Only men are given cards. On top of that, our men take whatever money we earn by working on the fields; they waste it on alcohol. The grain that we get is not sufficient to feed the whole family."

The panchayat mukhiya, Champa Devi, has her own set of problems. "Funds to take up projects under the NREGA are available, but there are several issues that actually create more problems, instead of offering solutions. For example, if we want to build a road, the government asks us to dig soil from the sides and use it for constructing the road. How is this going to solve the problem? After the first spell of monsoon, the soil will erode back into the pit that was dug up."

"Besides," she says, "some affluent upper caste Hindus have grabbed government land that was meant to be used for construction of canals for irrigation. I can't ask them to leave since I belong to the SC category. And they threaten by saying that after my term as mukhiya ends, they will be back in power (this is not a permanent SC constituency). I know, they will then harass me and my family."

Programme Officer Pawan Kumar blames the villagers: "We can provide them work, but only if they ask for it. They are happy working on the fields and make good money helping in wedding ceremonies in the village. They don't even ask for jobs."

The truth is that many of the cardholders are not even aware of the procedure of applying for work. Although the rules are written on the back of the cards, most of them can't read. Asserts Kumar, "We organise and educate the villagers about their right to demand jobs and how they can apply for it."

Locals, however, have heard of no such programmes. Curiously enough, declares Aditya Prasad, Deputy Secretary, Rural Development Department, Government of Bihar: "We are preparing a large-scale awareness programme, but I can't share the details with you as it is confidential."

Janmesh Kumar Singh, Education Officer, Central Board for Worker's Education, Ranchi, has a different take: "The Act can be very useful for landless labourers in the unorganised sector. This sector is huge and not easy to handle. One needs a dedicated set-up for the NREGA. How can we expect the same government body to look after such a project when it is already overburdened with 50 other schemes? It's an ambitious project and can be very fruitful if implemented properly."

It has been two years since the so-called implementation of the NREGA in this village of Bihar, but no tangible and egalitarian progress has been witnessed so far. If this is the state of a rural zone that falls in the Patna district, so close to the state's capital, then the condition of remote villages in this poor state with huge rural unemployment can be well imagined.