Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

CHENNAI: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is of significant benefit to agriculture in the Cauvery delta area, according to sources in the Thanjavur district administration.

Speaking to The Hindu, Collector M.S. Shanmugham explained that until recently, work on A-class canals, the main ones connecting rivers directly to fields, was not included within the ambit of NREGS projects.

“However, after last year’s floods, I wrote to the government and managed to get a government order passed to permit NREGS de-silting projects to also take up A-class canals. The de-silting work and anti-flood operations have been of much benefit to agriculture in the district,” Mr. Shanmugham said. Additionally, this had significantly increased work opportunities in this district for NREGS workers.

In the Cauvery delta, canals make up the “nerve centre” of agriculture, which is highly dependent on the flow of water released from dams upstream, Mr. Shanmugham explained.

Given this “huge network of canals in Thanjavur the budgetary allocation to de-silt that entire network, if it were to be done by the Public Works Department, will be Rs.100 crore at least,” according to him.

However as the NREGS budget is effectively utilised for this purpose the financial burden is taken off the State government, creating a “win-win situation”.

Simultaneously, “Rs.1.4 crore in purchasing power is being pumped into the rural economy every week, in the form of wages for approximately 30,000 workers district-wide,” Mr. Shanmugham said.

Most workers tend to receive Rs.75-80 per day, and “there is usually no underpayment of wages as the schedule of rates clearly defines separate terms for hard soil, soft soil, jungle clearance work, and so on.”

Labour budget

According to data provided by the district administration, labour budget has been approved for 1440 canal, tank and road works projects for 2009-10 at an estimated cost of Rs.47.35 crore.

Funds to the tune of Rs.62.61 crore have been received by the district from Central and State governments for this year, of which 76 per cent has already been utilised.

Employment under the NREGS has been provided to 1,68,721 job cardholders in Thanjavur district thus far, generating 60 lakh mandays of work, according to the administration.

Labels: canals, Cauvery, delta, desilting, job card, NREGS, Public Works Department, Thanjavur

From The Hindu, with modifications

CHENNAI: Faced with a shortage of farm work and no recourse to alternatives, labourers in Tamil Nadu are demanding that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) be extended to more than 100 days per year.

A. Lalitha, A. Rani and B. Papathi are landless labourers who live in Tirukanurpatti in Thanjavur. They work on a road formation project under the NREGS in the burning heat of the mid-day sun. Sheltering in the shade of a solitary tree in the vicinity, they explained why an extension of the policy is vital to sustaining their livelihoods.

“The sudden shortfall in the monsoon has left us with very few options in farm work,” Ms. Lalitha explained. “I have been without work for one whole month until I joined this NREGS project four days ago,” she said. Her husband and the husbands of Ms. Rani and Ms. Papathi are without work currently as they are looking for farm jobs that have all but vanished. “When they do find work, it pays something like Rs.20-30 per day,” Ms. Rani says, and this makes it difficult to make ends meet and feed the family. Their husbands also spend a large part of the household income on alcohol consumption, they admitted.

In this context of employment insecurity and monsoon-dependence in agriculture the NREGS is a lifeline for the landless poor. “We would like to ask the government for at least Rs.100 as the daily wage,” Ms. Lalitha said. “As for the work, what we need is a minimum of 150 days per year. Even with such an increase we would be without work for some months. Ideally we would like to be offered 300 days of work per year if possible,” she said.

The same theme is encountered across different NREGS sites. For example in Vanarangudi village near Thanjavur, R. Malika and V. Sakuntala, both landless labourers, worked on a nearby NREGS site for 70-80 days last year. They are less confident about getting enough work on farms this year, given that the monsoon failure has hit farm employment hard: “We’re finding it difficult to get work on farms nearby and have to travel farther to find employment. Our situation would be better if we were paid Rs.100 per day and had more days of work on [NREGS] sites,” Ms. Malika said.

At another roadwork project in Bodidasanpatti village in Theni district NREGS workers S. Vidiyammal and T. Veerama explained that last year they worked only 25 days on NREGS projects, far below the 100 days promised by the policy. “Most years we only find about four months of work in agriculture,” they said. Five days of work per week and a salary of Rs.100 per day would make a big difference to their livelihoods, according to Ms. Veerama.

District authorities corroborate the significant positive benefits of the NREGS for rural labour. “The right to employment is in effect being implemented via the NREGS,” argued M.S. Shanmugham, District Collector, Thanjavur. The “guaranteed” element of the scheme has been understood well by the workers and “they even complain directly to me sometimes when they have been provided fewer days of work than they have requested,” Mr. Shanmugham said.

The administration in Tiruchi district reports a similar situation: “A large number of labourers in the district are demanding more than 100 days of work. In most such cases the workers have already completed 100 days of work and desire further employment,” says J. Dhanashekharan, Project Officer responsible for the NREGS in the District Rural Development Agency.

Given the sharp drop in agricultural production resulting from monsoon failure this year, the voices of the rural poor in Tamil Nadu districts are a clarion call for extending the NREGS. With drought or drought-like conditions in many districts the Government of India needs to rapidly consolidate and build further from its initial efforts to provide employment security to the rural workforce. In this context the recent proclamations by the Finance Minister that more than 100 days of employment will not be provided is a regressive step that could undo the progress made thus far towards reducing the vulnerability of the landless poor.

Labels: 100 days, agriculture, employment security, monsoon failure, NREGS, Thanjavur, Tiruchi

From The Hindu

CHENNAI: Agrarian distress is spreading through parts of Thanjavur and Tiruchi districts, gathering speed as farmers realise the full impact of monsoon failure.

The release of water from the Mettur dam on July 28 was significantly later than the usual date of June 12. This delay has caused the failure of the Kuruvai crop to the extent of 30,000 hectares in Thanjavur.

In neighbouring Tiruchi the original target of 6,000 hectares of Kuruvai was missed by a wide margin: “Only 4,224 hectares have been reconciled,” T.Soundiah, the District Collector, explained to The Hindu. Paddy has not been the only casualty of the monsoon failure, according to Mr.Soundiah, who also pointed out that only 610 hectares out of a potential 54,000 hectares are being cultivated under millets.

Farmers depending on pump irrigation have seen marginally more success with Kuruvai than their counterparts who depend on canals. In Thanjavur, 15,000 hectares of Kuruvai were cultivated using pump irrigation.

However, even pump irrigation is no guarantee of sufficient water. A farmer K.Sundararajan who cultivates 10 acres of paddy in Thanjavur has pumps and bore-wells and is also not far from the river bank. Yet he says, “I have been unable to plant Kuruvai this season and have only got enough water for my animals to drink.”

In the “rice bowl” of Tamil Nadu farmers are left with intensifying distress. They are being constricted by a wide array of deteriorating circumstances including water shortages, power shortages, inaccessibility of loans for farm inputs, and barriers against mechanisation.
Optimism about the next round of cultivation for the Samba crop is fragile.

The Secretary of the Cauvery Delta Farmers Association, S.Ranganathan, explained, “If we get the normal amount of water and it is released on time – on June 12 – we can expect up to seven months of continuous water through the canal system. However, this year we can only expect water for 1.5 days in every 10 days.”

Insufficient power supply

Power supply for pumps is also insufficient, according to J.Varadarajan, who owns 50 acres of farmland in Devangudi, Thanjavur district. Normally he uses 4 bore-wells, each of which can irrigate up to 15 acres if continuous power is provided.

“Given the fluctuation in power supply, we are only able to irrigate about 5 acres per well,” Mr.Varadarajan noted. “I have also received no water via the canals, and my dependence on the bore-wells is even more,” he said. However this dependence has led to an imbalance in the pH of the soil which potentially reduces the yields of all farms in the vicinity.

Farmers are struggling to combat the drop in yields by increasing input productivity. In part, this is driven by finance for fertilisers, pesticides and equipment being completely beyond the reach of small and medium farmers. P.Manikavasakam and V.Jivakumar, who cultivate five acres and one acre of land respectively, explained that under the AIADMK administration they might have got a loan of Rs.9,000 with an acre of land as collateral. “At present we can only expect to receive a loan of Rs.1,000 to 2,000, which is barely sufficient to finance transplantation of paddy,” Mr.Manikavasakam rued.

Collectivised approach

Mr.Ranganathan makes a strong case for a collectivised approach to agriculture. Pointing to a sharp drop in agricultural yield in the lands that he farms, he said, “The solution lies in increased mechanisation, which has however not gained momentum in the Delta region. Given that threshers, for example, cost Rs.18-20 lakh, the entire village must pool its land as collateral and obtain finance.”

However, the interest in collective action is being thwarted by the diminishing prospects of those who remain in agriculture. They face the grim reality of having to choose between watching their margins get squeezed as their indebtedness grows and forsaking the lands that their families have cultivated for generations.

Labels: Cauvery, delta, fertiliser, Kuruvai, mechanisation, Mettur dam, power, pump irrigation, rice bowl, Thanjavur, Tiruchi, water