H10 Agricultural Labour, Family Labour
Use of drones is among initiatives taken by Centre to push for using tech to bring in transparency & accountability in MGNREGS work. However, only 11 states have been using drones for this. https://theprint.in/india/too-many-work-sites-lack-of-trained-staff-why-drone-monitoring-of-mgnregs-work-remains-limited/2131051/
In July last year, the ministry issued the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the use of drones in surveillance of work sites. As per the SOPs, drones can be used for four activities: monitoring of ongoing works, inspection of completed works, impact assessment of completed works and special inspection in case of a complaint.
“We started using drones for assessment of work and monitoring workers at the sites in December last year. One of the reasons for the slow pace of work is unavailability of trained professionals. A lot of empaneled companies are working in the agriculture sector. We are now trying to rope in women self-help groups (SHGs) for drone flying in selected work sites,” said a senior official with Tamil Nadu government’s rural development department.
Stagnating real wages, a decaying social security system and lack of concern for informal workers mark the Modi government’s 10-year tenure according to data collated by economists Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera. https://thewire.in/labour/growth-in-real-wages-virtually-zero-under-modi-government-data
While presenting their findings last week at a press conference organised by Loktantra Bachao 2024, the economists said that “real wages in the country had barely risen since 2014” across agricultural, non-agricultural and construction sectors.
From 2014-2024, real wages (wages that have been adjusted for inflation) for agricultural labourers declined by 1.3% every year. This is in stark contrast to the increase of real wages by 6.8% each year under the Manmohan Singh-led government from 2004-2014.
Renaming of schemes and exaggerated results
Khera and Drèze said that while the NDA government has, to some extent, compensated for this decline by taking up schemes with focus on building toilets, improving LPG access and housing, their success is much smaller than that what the government claims.
For instance, the NDA government declared India “open defecation free” in 2019, but NFHS-5 data for 2019-21 reveal that about 20% of all households had no toilet facility.
The Modi government is also guilty of renaming schemes launched by the UPA government and glorifying them with PR and marketing campaigns.
- PM Awas Yojayana was Indira Awas Yojana
- Swachh Bharat Mission came from the Nirmal Bharat Mission
- ICDS and Midday meal were clubbed under PM POSHAN
- Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water scheme became Jal Jeevan Mission and,
- PDS was rechristened as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana
22/04/2024
Rights activists have raised the alarm about a cycle of debt that results in long days, illness and injury as workers struggle to work off what they owe.
Labour contractors – who act as middlemen between sugarcane workers and farm owners – offer cash advances based on an informal agreement about how much cane the labourers are expected to harvest that season over five to six months.
Rights activists and community advocates have raised the alarm about a cycle of debt that results in long days, illness and injury as workers struggle to work off what they owe.
They say the situation has been exacerbated by climate change as crops fail and jobs dry up for small-scale farmers or casual agriculture workers – with many then migrating to find work but facing dwindling pay and worsening labour conditions.
Karan Gautam Wavhale, 20, wanted to join the Indian Army, but it was not to be. Instead, he became a labourer, travelling over 200 km from his home in Koyal, in Maharashtra’s Beed district, to toil in the sugar fields of Karnataka.
He is one of millions who migrate with the sugar season each year. Heatwaves, drought and floods brought by climate change make the working conditions increasingly harsh. And when yields are low, many workers get trapped with debts they cannot repay.
“It is about survival,” Wavhale told Climate Home News. “Due to water shortages several months each year, there is just no work for us here…there is no option for us but to migrate.”
Most of the village’s 2,500 people travel to neighbouring states Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh or western Maharashtra for seasonal work in sugarcane fields. There are no other jobs for them in Koyal and many residents hold government-issued Below Poverty Line cards.
India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of sugar and the second-largest exporter. 50 million farmers are involved in India’s sugar industry, cultivating sugarcane in an area spanning almost five million hectares (50,000 sq km).
More and more, these migrants have to work in scorching heat – temperatures exceeded 46 degrees Celsius in Maharashtra in April. This takes a severe toll on their physical and mental health, leading to extreme fatigue, anaemia and joint problems as well as depression and anxiety, according to a report by Oxfam India.
by Arvind Shukla, Mayank Aggarwal & Meenal Upreti
19/12/2022
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As the world recovers from the pandemic, and many across the country are trying to find their feet with gainful employment, a study released early this year by CMIE reveals that agriculture absorbed an additional 11 million workers over the last 3 years. The study also indicates a loss of 15 million jobs in the rest of the economy. Mahesh Vyas the CEO of CMIE, refers to it as “an involuntary reverse migration from ‘Factories to farms’”.
https://countercurrents.org/2022/07/securing-skilled-jobs-for-the-present-and-the-future/
Since the 1990s, India has largely witnessed an outmigration from rural areas to urban areas, leaving behind agriculture for more lucrative jobs, both skilled and unskilled, in cities. With frequent changes in farming policies, the vagaries of the monsoon, water insecurity and lack of financial support, agriculture has suffered, and people are migrating out of villages in search of better jobs. But the pandemic has reversed this situation as thousands of migrant labourers were forced to return home, and to farming, to survive. Although agriculture incomes are significantly lower than the urban jobs, it has become a reliable means to survival. The total number of people employed in agriculture in the financial year 2021 was nearly 152 million and this accounted for almost 40 % of the nation’s workforce. The CMIE report indicates a jump from 42.5% to 45.6 % in agriculture compared with total employment figures during 2018-2020.
This increasing shift towards agriculture sends a big message to decision-makers. While it clearly indicates that it is a response that is guided by distress and also frustrations dealing with unreliable urban jobs, it demonstrates the capacity of the agriculture sector to absorb and create a potential for survival. This further highlights the ambiguous nature of the manufacturing and the informal sector that largely operates on market demand, and which now is still far from complete recovery. A key take-away from this would be to strengthen, secure and imagine possibilities of bolstering a thriving agro-pastoral and cottage industry based sector well connected to high consumption urban centres, so that there is much higher viability to agricultural incomes.
24/07/2022
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