In western Odisha, Nuakhai, the harvest festival that falls on August 28, brings prayers for bounty, but contractors engaged in labour trafficking harvest the poor instead, binding families in debt and despair
Forty-five-year-old Premabati Tumunia of Sargul village, under Ichhapada panchayat in Muribahal block of Odisha’s Balangir district, has just cooked lunch: rice and spinach. It’s a hot day, so she wants to rest for a few minutes. Premabati plans to clean the dust that has settled on the unplastered brick walls of her two-room house. Behind this structure stands her old kutcha home.
Premabati’s family owns 1.5 acres of land. Her husband, Pitambar, is in Hyderabad, where he has been working as a labourer for the past couple of months to meet some urgent needs. He is expected to return in a few days. Then, the couple plans to do some shopping for their family ahead of the Nuakhai celebrations.
Celebrated the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, the agrarian festival of Nuakhai is the most important event in the social calendar of western Odisha, which comprises 10 districts. This year, Nuakhai will be observed on August 28. “We can’t afford to spend more than a few hundred rupees,” says Premabati.
Besides the couple, their family consists of two sons, both aged over 20 years, daughter-in-law, and daughter, Kumudini, 17. All of them are Dadan, as seasonal distress migrant workers recruited by labour contractors are called. Usually, they receive an advance amount before heading to the workplace.
The plight of migrant workers
Premabati narrates an incident her family encountered a few months ago. She says that during this time last year, they had received Rs 3 lakh from a labour contractor. The money helped them repay the local money lender Rs 50,000, along with the interest amount. Some of this money was spent on their house, too.
As per the deal, the six-member family was to make 6 lakh bricks over a six month period in a kiln near Hyderabad. “We left for Hyderabad last December,” she recalls. However, despite working for long hours, they could manage to make only 4,30,000 bricks. Meanwhile, their scheduled day of return had arrived.
The infuriated kiln owner, as is the normal practice, kept Premabati and her daughter Kumidini in hostage. “We worked for an extra month,” recalls Premabati. It was only after the intervention of the labour contractor that they were allowed to leave the kiln. They also had to return Rs 40,000 to the contractor. The duo arrived in Sargul on June 27, the day of the Rath Yatra.
Premabati Tumunia with her daughter Kumudini. All of her family members are Dadan, as seasonal distress migrant workers recruited by labour contractors are called.
Sporting a faint smile on her face, with a smart phone in her hand, Kumudini joins the conversation. However, her expression changes as the class 10 dropout recounts, “We could hardly sleep for 3-4 hours a day. The owner and his men would abuse us with filthy language. At times, they just stopped short of hitting my brothers; it was very scary.”
A few houses away, another woman, Tarabati Bhoi, 40, tells how the owner deducted Rs 10,000 from the promised amount. “We didn’t have the courage or support to ask him the reason,” she says. Yet, both Premabati and Tarabati say that they will leave their village after a few months. “What can we do? We have no option,” they say.
Jogeswar Bentakar is one of the two ward members of Sargul. He admits that at least 90 percent of Sargul’s residents (roughly 2,300) belong to the Dadan category. Over two-third of Sargul’s population is ST, the rest consists of other castes: General, OBC, and SC.
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The village boasts of a primary school, post office and Revenue Inspector office. The high school, in Ichhapada, is a few kilometres away. Besides roads, Sargul has access to electricity, drinking water, ambulances and other basic facilities. Though most houses are kutcha, there are a few pucca ones also that dot the village.
The entire village bathes in the narrow, almost dry Lanta river. “If you visit Sargul during the January-June period, you will not find even a single person here. All houses will be locked from outside,” laughs Ghadi Mahananda, 35, a resident, himself a Dadan.
Employment generation nil in most districts
Like Sargul, with a near-total exodus, the entire Ichhapada Panchayat (9 villages, 11 wards, 4,800 voters, according to PS member Tofan Nag) wears a deserted look during this period. Nag estimates that 80 percent of the panchayat’s population are Dadan workers. He claims that every family in the panchayat has ration cards. A majority of villagers own marginal land holdings, but in the absence of irrigation, farming is out of question.
Ichhapada is not an isolated case. It’s not difficult to find many such Dadan-prone panchayats across Muribahal, Bangomunda, Turekela and Belpada, Patnagarh, Titlagarh blocks in Balangir. That doesn’t mean that other areas in the district are better off. But the percentage of migration is relatively less.
About 14 of Odisha’s 30 districts are identified as migration-prone. However, the KBK region — Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Balangir, Sonepur, Kalahandi and Nuapada — as well as parts of Bargarh district is the hub of distress migration.
“Dadan is nothing but labour trafficking,” maintains Umi Daniel, director migration and education, Aide et Action, International. Experts say that over the last decade, the Dadan issue has witnessed a sharp decline in some blocks of Kalahandi. That’s due to the Indravati dam project. Carved out of Kalahandi, Nuapada was made a separate district in 1992.
Veteran Congress leader and ex MLA from Kantabanji (in Balangir), Santosh Singh Saluja puts the Dadan figure of Balangir-Nuapada, Kalahandi, at roughly 5 lakh. “Not less than that,” he claims.
According to Koraput Lok Sabha MP, Saptagiri Ulaka, the situation of distress migration in Koraput and Rayagada districts under his constituency is equally grim. “In my area, employment generation is nil. Even in the private sector, the local people have no scope for employment,” he complains.
The government-sponsored BPL rice scheme has somewhat addressed the starvation issue. “However, one requires at least some income to meet other needs,” views farmer leader Lingaraj Pradhan.
Generally, the poor borrow from the village money lender in times of emergency. Senior journalist Rajib Sagaria informs that, at times, people borrow as little as 300-400 rupees. The rate of interest is a whopping 10 percent a month.
The failures of KBK Yojana, MGNREGA
Concerned at the poverty, starvation deaths and incidents of sale of children at regular intervals in the region, the Narasimha Rao-led central government had rolled out the KBK Yojana in 1995. Thousands of crores of central assistance flowed into the region.
However, three decades later, the region’s tryst with poverty and deprivation continues to haunt Odisha. “The scheme began well, but got derailed in the subsequent period,” rues Ulaka.
Pradhan, however, offers a different view. “After the first few years, the primary objective of the KBK project shifted from poverty alleviation to developing the region into a mining hub,” he believes. “The administration is more committed towards protecting the interest of the mining companies,” he adds.
Nestled in the Eastern Ghats, the KBK districts boast of a vast forest cover and rich mineral deposits — bauxite, chromite, lime iron and manganese etc. A number of companies have their mining interests in the region. New players continue to arrive. The richer the land, the poorer are the people, goes the popular adage. There couldn’t be a better example.
Like the KBK scheme, MGNREGA programme, too, has failed to have its desired effect. That is evident in the migration-prone pockets. In Sargul, villagers inform that this year only 20 days of work has been undertaken. A few others complain of non-receipt of old wages.
Former Odisha chief secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra is surprised. “I fail to understand why the government is unable to implement its own policy of providing additional 200 days of employment under MGNREGA in the migration-prone areas.”
Everywhere, people believe that the big ticket schemes like KBK and MGNREGA have failed due to lack of political will, an insensitive administration, rampant corruption at each level and unscrupulous vested interest groups.
Jogeswar Bentakar (extreme right), one of the two ward members of Sargul village, in Western Odisha, with villagers.
“Too much of technological intervention-digitalisation, delay in payment and uncertainty of work openings deter the poor villagers from being part of MGNREGA programmes,” says Daniel. Thus, more and more people turn to labour contractors, who offer 180 days of assured work and cash. “It’s a classic example of one being caught between the devil and the deep sea,” Daniel asserts, “There is no other option before him.”
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Ichhapada PS Member Nag concedes that many migrant workers are subjected to torture. They return with bruises. Stories of horrible exploitation of women at the brick kilns are heard as well. Last year, Odisha’s labour and employees’ state insurance minister, Ganesh Ram Khuntia, said in the Assembly that 403 migrant workers of the state had died in other states during the nine years between 2005 and 2014. Ganjam, where migration takes place throughout the year, had the highest number of 59 deaths, followed by 39 in Kalahandi and 35 in Balangir. “Not all cases are reported. This year alone, 20 local workers have lost lives,” claims Saluja.
The ugly business
As is the practice, a week or so before Nuakhai, labour contractor Sardar’s henchmen visit the prospective workers, verify their age and physical condition and discuss about the place of work etc. Then, an advance amount — in Balangir, it’s called Bahu Bandha or tying of arms — is paid.
“Having received the advance amount, one can’t say no, he or she has to go. As a token of guarantee, the Sardars keep the labourers’ Aadhaar card or other documents with them,” tells Sagaria.
In the KBK districts, labour migration is a thriving business. Kantabanji, a sleepy, relatively small town, is considered as the hub. “Many may say that Sambalpur — given its size, population and market — is the trading hub of Western Odisha. But in terms of market transaction, Kantabanji scores over Sambalpur, argues Nuapada-based journalist Ansuman Agasti. “In the Nuakhai season alone, Kantabanji’s labour trade witnesses a transaction of, at least, Rs 1200 crore,” claims Agasti.
Daniel, who has been part of teams that legally released distressed migrant workers from confinement in inter-state brick kilns more than once, says migration in KBK is simply debt bondage: “People are traded without a check.” He adds: “The political economy of migration is that it basically creates a lot of money and opportunities for only vested interest groups at the cost of thousands of poor people.