BARAK
UPOTYOKA SANGRAMI JOTE
(Barak
Valley Struggling Alliance)
Ref :
Date : 29-02-2012
To,
The Hon'ble Prime Minister
Govt. of India, New Delhi
Through The Deputy Commissioner,Cachar, Assan
Sub : Memorandum.
Sir,
We, on behalf of the various constituent social
organisations of ‘Barak Valley Struggling Alliance, would like to bring to
your kind notice the following facts and the demand thereon for your perusal
and immediate needful action.
(1)
(A) we
demand the tea-wage parity in Barak & Brahmaputra Valley.
Bypassing the negotiation
process initiated at the behest of State Labor Comissioner, the recent hike in
Barak Valley tea-workers’ wage which has been declared through an unilateral
agreement reached between a union and the tea owner’s association is in no way
an upward movement of the wages to minimise the prevailing disparity, and it’s
an arithmatical jugglery to hoodwink the people. Because in the year 2014, as
per the agreement, when the wage of Barak Valley tea workers will reach to Rs75,
the wage of Brahmaputra Valley workers will move to much higher level from the
present and already enhanced wage of Rs. 76. Moreover, the tea-workers in West
Bengal are also getting much higher wages than their counterpart in Assm
against the same nature of work. This is gross violation of the principle of
equal wages for equal work and these anomalies should be eradicated forthwith
by maintaining parity in wages at least within Assam and a broad framework on
task needs to be formulated.
(B)
when the MGNREGA-workers who are considered as unskilled rural manual workers
are getting the daily wage of Rs.130/worker, the present daily wage of
tea-worker of Barak Valley vis-à-vis Assam is too meager to maintain the
livelihood. So the daily wage of tea-workers should be enhanced to at least the
level of MGNREGA-wage.
(C) the
15th Indian Labour Conference held in 1957 stipulated that the need
based minimum wage for all industrial workers should be calculated covering the
food and living requirements of three units consumption. Under this guideline
and in view of the present consumer price index (CPI), the tea-worker’s wage
will be much more than the double of the existing wage. The resistance of the
employer’s associations to consider 1.5 units instead of 3 units in case of calculating
the tea-worker’s wage on the ground that the engagement of both male &
female workers implies two earners in the family is absolutely unfounded &
baseless. There are ample evidences contrary to their claim. Moreover, as the
existing wage is much less than the half of need based minimum wage that would
have been determined by the Wage Board under the guideline enshrined in the
declaration of Indian Labour Conference and the exiting CPI, the workers are
extra-economically coerced to accept less than bare minimum wage that would
have been the actual wage, if calculated on the basis of the ill-founded logic
of the employer’s too.
(2)
It is to be
noted with utter dismay of all concern that though there was an all India
BPL-survey in the year 2007, no field-level BPL-survey has been held after 2002
in Assam. Even BPL-card has not been issued to all those families who are
enlisted in 2002 survey. The 2012 BPL survey to prepar the list of BPL families
has already been kick-started and in that event, we demand that the survey
report must be verified through genuine and effective on-going process of
Gramsabhas. Moreover, lot of drama have been orchestrated, lot of APL-BPL
manipulation has been designed to hush up easy money, lot of food grains dumped
to the houses of well-off having BPL-card, when the destitute failed to have
one square meal a day for not having BPL card, and all these amply made it
clear that the APL-BPL categorization for PDS system is highly ineffectual and
unreliable. As per Arjun Sengupta Commission report, 77% of the population in
India falls in the BPL category and the BPL population in this part of country
will not be less, if not more, than this estimation. But here, a large number
of families do not even have ration-cards, not to speak of BPL cards. For
instance, the poorest of the poor slumdwellers in the suburb of Silchar do not
have ration cards. Those who have APL/BPL cards in these districts of Barak
Valley do get their full entitlements. A huge quantity of ration materials from
the entitlements of the consumers is off-loaded from the supply chain of
FCI-Coopertive-District Wholesale Agency-dealers, and siphoned off to the
market, and this is time and again vindicated by the news of grabbing of
unauthorised Tuck loaded with FCI-foodgrains. All the tea-gardens receive the
ration-entitlements from the PDS chain in PDS price. But in most of the
tea-gardens, the workers’ are getting poor quality and less than the entitled
quantity of ration-materials. The inspection regime in the PDS system either
utterly failed or disinterested to grab the culprit and to mend the loopholes.
With this in view, we demand that
(A)
Universal PDS
system should be put in place again to eradicate corruption and to ensure the
BPL population to avail subsidized food grain. BPL list should be verified
through gramsabhas.
(B) The ration cards should be immediately issued to all
the valid applicants.
(C) Thorough and effective inspection, easy consumer
complain mechanism at the dealer-end, quick grievance-redressal mechanism need
to be put in place.
(D)
Garden-wise
Inspection from both the labour (as the ration is wage-in-kind also) and supply
department should be done on regular basis.
(E) District, garden and village level monitoring public
committees should be formed at your behest.
(F) A thorough inquiry with public hearings of all the
past misappropriation of PDS materials should be initiated.
(3) Though there is
a huge mismatch between the official record of the NREGA implementation and the
ground reality due to the manipulation of the implementing agency, even the
official record shows that the implementation of NREGA is gradually
deteriorating especially in Cachar District and dismal in all the three
district of Barak Valley. The mechanism of manipulation cab be cited as (i) The
mandays of work shown against the Jobcards issued to the well-off families are
fictitious and recorded without the actual work done. (ii) employment sought,
complaints lodged, unemployment allowance claimed etc are not registered
properly and are not reflected in the website-record. (ii) machines are used
and jobcard holders are engaged as contractual workers in the NREG-schemes
without making any proper entry to the jobcard as well as MR. (iii) Innumerable
complaints to the grievance redressal authorities are lying unattended. (iv)
Formation of monitoring committes and the social audits are done through fake Gramsabhas. In addition to the
manipulative and corrupt practices, let us put the official record straight to
vindicate our claim of dismal performance of the implementing agencies. In
2008-09, Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi recorded 3991, 40, 2 households
respectively who were provided with 100 days of work, that recorded in 2009-10,
2010-11, 2011-12 are 751-134-23, 172-245-163, 39-52-0 respectively. None in
these three district received any unemployment allowance and many claims of
jobcard-holders for unemployment allowance are lying at programme-officer or at
other level without being processed to requisition fund from the state
Government for payment. Among the three districts of Barak Valley, 2011-12
record shows that Hailakandi district with less population has spent much more
fund (though it is also too measly an amount to meet the work demand) than the other two districts and as such
argument of scarcity of fund on the part of the lower bureaucracy is baseless
and smacks of inefficiency or inertia syndrome of the implementing agencies, as
the sanction of schemes and fund flow are the on-going process basing on
demand. This fact-sheets speak volumes about the dismal performance and the
insensitivity of the implementing agencies. Moreover, we are of the opinion that
the rural people need 200 days of work and the guaranteed minimum wage to the
tune of at least Rs. 200 considering the existing CPI.
With this
in view, we demand that
(A)
The total
days of work and wage should be enhanced to 200 days and Rs 200.
(B) The present stipulated 100 days of work must be
ensured to all the job-seekers.
(C) Claim of un-employment allowance should be settled
forthwith.
(D)
In addition
to the Ombudsman, a district level committee comprising of the representatives
from NREG-workrs’ union, social organisation, experts should be formed
forthwith in consonance with the provision of the act and at the behest of the
program co-ordinator to monitor the
NREGA-work and social audit.
(E) Word level gramsabhas and social audit should be done
on regular basis and with full transparency.
(F) Block level physical audit must be intiated at the
behest of programme officer taking into the complainant union/organisation into
confidence.
(4)
With deep anguish, we have observed that during recent
days, lots of hue and cry are being registered, all opposing the construction
of a 'water bomb' at Tipaimukh. A handful of
protests have been witnessed in Manipur, Mizoram, Barak Valley of
Assam, besides lot many from our neighbouring country, Bangladesh.
We look at all these protests from the environmental and human point of view,
sincerely believe that any force, that lacks in feeling for the environmental
impact of the proposed dams should be dealt with severely. We sincerely like to
draw your kind attention on the facts mentioned hereunder;
(A) We
sincerely believe that there should be an extensive downstream environmental
impact study from the proposed dams site up to sea-mouth should be jointly
conducted at the initiative of the Government of India and Bangladesh where
experts from Non Government Organisations particularly from the environmental
outfits, IITs and Universities must be included to asses the possible
detrimental impact on the environment and life of inhabitants in the catchments
areas at large. Without downstream impact study, if a clean-cheat to the
projects are given it would be detrimental for both environment and people at
large and struggling outfits of both in India and Bangladesh in particular. It
is to be mentioned here that an expert committee was constituted to study the
impact of big dams in Bramhaputra Valley alone, we are here like to request you
Sir to form similar study team for investigating cumulative down stream impact
in Barak Valley too.
(B) the
proposed dams fall at the confluence of Indo-Burma, Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese
Biodiversity hotspot zone. These areas are characterised by the presence of a
large number plant and animal species, many of which are not seen or seldom
witnessed in rest part of the world. A large number of them have been
categorised as endangered and threatened as the IUCN Red Data book and the
Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Once the dam is constructed, these innocent
endangered and threatened species would have no other alternative, but to
perish! Moreover many of the tribal people including Hmar, Naga, Kuki,
Manipuri and others those who have been living there for generations
will have to leave the place for ever. Under such a situation, does the
construction of a dam in the proposed site speak quite well in favour of
Biodiversity conservation?
(C) We strongly
believe and observe with deep concern that this rock filled 500 mts. long and
162.8 mt. high Tipaimukh dam to be constructed at the earthquake
zone-V, Wherein there will be constant pressure of water, if for any
reason cracks, the entire civilization of the whole of downstream will be
washed down in no time. The age old Barak-Surma culture will
live in history only. Can any force or technology prevent this and ensure
against such catastrophic mishap?
(D) Besides the
above mentioned burning issues, other important impact like water scarcity,
crop cultivation, navigation, siltation, ecological imbalance, river pollution,
extinction of aquatic life forms and the like are never the less important
frontier areas that deserve careful and serious attention, before construction
of the dam.
Thanking You
