Distress Migration of Labourers: Addressing Core Issues
Madan Mahapatra
Come Nuakhai (festival of early harvest) and labour contractors in BKN (Bolangir, Kalahandi & Nuapada) region act felons spreading their tentacles to engulf poor labourers. The festival is so sacred and culturally binding that people urgently need money to meet festival related expenses along with fulfilling social obligations as a mark of reverence to their culture. The guileful labour contractors make hay playing with the emotion of labourers by tacitly lending money with very high interest rates, sometimes twenty percent per month which the labourers are practically unable to repay. Being defaulters, the poor labourers have no other option but to become commodities in the grievous act of human trade and migrate as bonded labourers or dadan to work in the brick kilns of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The exodus starts after harvest of paddy and there is come back during ploughing season just before monsoon.
The homecoming starts during June every year. Men puffing bidis and women with babies in their laps throng the railway stations in Nuapada, Balangir and Kalahandi districts alighting from trains and trying hard to forget the ordeal left behind in brick kilns. They toil there for six long months from December to May undergoing nightmarish experience with basic amenities a far cry. They are ill-treated, poorly paid, inadequately fed but used optimally by the kiln owners. The quandary doesn’t end here. Some of them die due to illness and lack of medical facilities. Women folk often complain of sexual harassment and molestation. Rape cases go unreported due to fear of kiln owners as well as influential labour contractors.
The purpose of this migration is to repay the loan amount what the dadans borrowed from the contractors at the time of need. The reasons are well known which include seasonal unemployment of the workforce as most of them are marginal farmers and landless labourers getting work only for six months a year from sowing to harvesting of paddy. It becomes really difficult to meet the both ends as they sit idle for rest of the year.
Migration may not be a matter of concern when skilled workforce migrates to get more wages and a better living, often necessary for growth of economy. But forced migration of unskilled labourers can be termed as distress migration which has negative impact on the economy. It’s also a form of bonded labour as per provisions in article 23(1) of the constitution of India, prohibited and punishable in accordance with law. To curb this ugly menace, some of the issues which usually go unaddressed, should be taken care of.
First among these issues is providing credit linkage at the right time. Most of the people in this region have either no access to banking facilities or the bankers are reluctant to extend credit support. The poor labourers with no savings of their own knock the doors of private money lenders when they’re in dire need of money for household, festival and health expenses. Banks in the region have to play a major role in opening more rural branches in inaccessible pockets juxtaposed with improvement of lending rates. The vulnerable section should be provided loans with nominal interest rates or an interest rate less than the prevailing one. They should not fall prey to the cumbrous process of paper work in the banks which even the elite tries to circumvent.
Irrigation comes next in the list demanding immediate intervention. It’s dismal that less than twenty five percent of the cultivable land in this area is under irrigation. Creating an irrigation potential of at least fifty percent will facilitate two crops a year and the agricultural work force can be engaged for the lean season i.e. from December to May. It can be achieved by lift irrigation points along natural sources of water and deep bore wells where underground water is at a favourable level. One of the major problems in accomplishing this task is erratic power supply along with low-voltage issues which needs to be sorted out by establishing power grids at least at a length of every fifty kilometres of supply. Major irrigation projects are not of immediate use as they take exponential years to be commissioned with the established badness of creating migration problems through displacement.
More rural branches of banks and extra irrigation facility may have the potentiality to check migration in a long haul, treading through the process which is not quite a cakewalk. But, in the current scenario the panacea of distress migration lies in livestock sector development. Animal Husbandry has a substantial share in providing employment to the rural poor of this region. It’s an excellent source of additional income with lesser effort. There is no distress sale of animals and animal products like meat, egg, chicken and milk in the area. A marginal farmer having two upgraded cows or twenty goats can very well bear the brunt of lean season. A flock of fifty poultry birds can cater to the livelihood of a landless family and act as an additional source of income when there is no demand for labour.
It’s encouraging that Government is exploring livestock sector for development of the region. A good number of poultry and goat rearing schemes are currently on offer with substantial government assistance targeted at income enhancement of farmers, rural youth and migrants. Though sporadic, schemes like backyard, broiler and layer poultry production as well as goat rearing are doing wonders in curbing distress migration. Effective implementation of these schemes lies in the hands of veterinarians working in the area as they’re involved in the holistic process of selection of beneficiaries, establishment of units, release of subsidy and provision of regular healthcare measures. In this context, the work of a veterinarian Dr Sujit Satapathy working at Khaprakhol of Bolangir can be taken as an example of practical form of curbing migration through animal husbandry. There is no denying the fact that other veterinarians in the area are following suit. To boost their morale in accomplishing the huge task of curbing migration in a holistic manner, vets’ dignity needs to be held high through corrective restructure of their cadre and providing basic amenities at their work places.
For instant check of migration there’s a need for prioritising livestock development sector by putting much thrust on it. It will provide a good source of income to the poor populace who may think twice before migrating to some other part of the country.
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The writer is a veterinarian, fictionist & freelance columnist
Mobile: 9437313183 E-mail: madan.m3@rediffmail.com
