September 13, 2020 3:30:19 am
Taslim, who worked in a factory in Mumbai, returned home in April, worked 16 days on a road cleaning project and earned 3,264 rupees. (Photo: Partha Paul)
First, there was the crown. And then came the confinement. It was as if a curse had fallen on my family, ”says 34-year-old Kakoli Roy, squatting in front of the clay stove on her verandah. The rice broth he’s cooking hisses angrily, rises, and spills onto the clay stove.
Until March, Kakoli and her husband Nanda Roy, 44, worked as agricultural laborers in the village of Berugram, in the Purba Bardhaman district of West Bengal, earning 150 rupees on the days they found work. “Sometimes I worked in other people’s fields, sometimes I went to extract sand in the Damodar River. The work is not legal, but I had to earn money, ”says Nanda.
Then came the lockdown to check for the spread of Covid-19 and all work stopped. As the closure was gradually lifted, the family of five, in addition to the couple, their two sons Shuvadeep, 15, and Swapnadeep, 7, and Roy’s mother, Saraswati, realized that given that work on other people’s farms was hard to come by, they only had one. Option to fall back on: Roy’s work card under Mahatma Gandhi’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that he obtained in 2009 and the 100 days of local employment that he promised.
Although NREGA’s work was halted as part of the nationwide shutdown announced by the Prime Minister in March, the flagship jobs scheme was one of the first to open, albeit with social distancing rules.
When the panchayat officials in Berugram began issuing new job cards, Kakoli decided to sign up for one. “My name was not on my husband’s work card, so I applied and got a new one. There are many jobs for those who call women. Now that we both get some money from NREGA work, we have somehow been running the household, ”says Kakoli.
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Across the country, work cards have been issued to more than 83 lakhs of new households in the first five months of the current financial year, the highest level in seven years. Of this, 16,700 new cards were issued in Purba Bardhaman, where 6.16 lakh households are under NREGA, the highest for any district in the country.
Fish farming is one of the other NREGA jobs in the district. (Photo: Partha Paul)
As Covid and the lockdown put the brakes on the district’s economy that revolved around its lush rice paddies and the workforce it sent to states like Kerala and Maharashtra, the increased enrollment in NREGA is a sign that in uncertain times like these, the job guarantee scheme is one of the few safety nets, however worn out, for families like the Roys.
For a few days in June, July and August, the couple worked on a NREGA project to clean an irrigation canal near their village, earning 204 rupees a day. Now they have been working on a forest clearing project.
“I worked for 10 days and earned Rs 2,040, and my husband earned Rs 4,080 for 20 days of work at NREGA. The money was not much, but it was a lifeline for our family when there was nothing else, “he says.
In June, after withdrawing the MNREGA money from her bank account, Kakoli ran to the local supermarket. “I bought the usual mustard oil, salt, haldi, jeera, dhania, garam masala, puffed rice, molasses, milk powder and tea leaves,” says Kakoli. But this time, he also bought kerosene.
“We have not had electricity since February. He logged out because we couldn’t pay the outstanding bills, about Rs 10,000. There is no way we can pay that amount of money, so we will have to do without it, ”he says. Behind her, her oldest son Shuvadeep, a student in class 9, is sitting on the mud floor covered in cow dung, writing in a notebook.
Shuvadeep, 15, and Swapnadeep, 7, go to the Berugram Acharya Girishchandra Basu Vidyapith venue. The school has been closed for almost six months, but instead of the noon meal, Swapnadeep receives rice, potatoes, chickpeas, soap and hand sanitizer from the school.
That’s a useful addition to the 28kg of rice, 12kg of flour, and 1kg of dal, all free, under the Antyodaya Annapoorna Yojana for BPL families, which the family obtains through the state PDS system.
When she is not working at NREGA, the children take Kakoli’s time. “The school is closed but they need to study. So my time is spent chasing them and asking them to study. “
Now he sends his oldest son to a local tutor, paying 200 rupees a month. “You know, education is essential. I studied until class 8 and my husband until class 3. But I want my children to study and do well, ”she says.
The little mud house has two small rooms, one of which is for Kakoli’s mother-in-law, Saraswati. A small crib, a plastic chair and a stool are all the furniture they have.
The lone ceiling fan has been gathering dust since February.
The family is building a new one-story house with the first installment of 6,000 rupees that Kakoli’s mother-in-law received last year under the government of Bangla Abas Yojana / Prime Minister Aawas Yojana. “Once this is ready, she will move there. We will be here, ”says Kakoli.
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In West Bengal, a state heading for highly polarized and high-risk elections, NREGA, and its role as a social security scheme in times of job loss and economic hardship, is not lost on political parties.
While Trinamool’s ruling Congress has been claiming credit for annual spending on the employment scheme that increased 200 percent between 2011 and 2019, the BJP chooses to recall that NREGA is a central government program.
Subrata Mukherjee, Minister of Panchayat and Rural Development whose ministry is the nodal agency for the implementation of NREGA, denies that the government is taking advantage of the employment scheme for the elections.
“We issued hundreds of thousands of new employment cards this year. Migrant workers coming from different states had lost all their jobs. We provided them with work cards so they could earn some money for their family during these difficult times. We never did all this thinking about the elections. We did this because it is our responsibility as a state government to take care of our people. However, the people of the state know the work and achievements of our government. So obviously this will also benefit us in the elections ”.
Elections, however, are not on Kakoli’s mind. “I don’t have time to think about everything in the world. When it’s time to vote, I’ll see it, ”he says.
For the Roys, NREGA has been a “lifesaver.” While Nanda Roy worked for 20 days and earned Rs 4,080, her wife Kakoli earned Rs 2,040 working 10 days. (Photo: Partha Paul)
These days, the couple have been working on a NREGA project to clear the village’s vacant lot of thorn bushes and weeds. This Thursday morning, they haven’t been called to work, but Kakoli offers to take the Sunday Express to the workplace.
As he heads to the site, at the far end of the village, he talks about his routine on days when he has work NREGA: he wakes up at 3am, rushes to cook and clean, and leaves at 6am for the Workplace. Work starts at 7 in the morning and continues until noon, with a half hour break. There are days when they only call Kakoli to work, and others when only Nanda goes to work. But some days, they call both of them. On days like these, Kakoli wears Swapnadeep.
“It is very difficult to work with young children. So I save a pack of cookies or some candy for Swapnadeep. She sits next to me while I work. After work, I shower and make lunch, “says Kakoli.
At the NREGA job site, Surajit Malik, one of the supervisors, says: “We managed to do a lot of work during the closing period: we cleaned the irrigation canal, we cleared the forest, we started a plantation next to the road. There are also people who worked in aloevera plantations, fish farming, road construction works… We take more care in these times. All workers get maks and hand sanitizers. “
According to panchayat officials, all of this work involved 86,511 man-days of work and 4,174 work cards. Officials said that since April, 636 new job cards have been created in the Berugram gram panchayat alone, bringing the total number of active job cards to 5,424.
Shuvankar Majumder, Block Development Officer for the Jamalpur Block, under which Berugram is located, says: “Usually we plan the full-year NREGA works in April. But this year, since it is a pandemic and people have less money in their hands, we have been trying to do as much work as possible so that people have money in their hands. We have already spent 88% of the fund’s target this year. We can look for more funds after that. “
So far, the panchayat has only seen two cases of Covid. Of the 311 migrants who returned, none tested positive. However, Majumder fears that if the numbers rise, it could affect NREGA as well.
“Now we are faced with a problem. In March, April, May, no Covid cases were reported on the block, so we were able to involve around 15,000 workers per day. But since June, we have been seeing Covid cases. That is why we have had to be careful. Now we only call about 5,000 workers a day for NREGA work. As far as possible, we try to involve families in need: women, migrants who have returned and are without work ”.
According to the district administration, the Jamalpur bloc saw 2,739 migrant workers return home.
Among those who returned is Sheikh Taslim, a 24-year-old from the village of Salimdanga Jabjabi, just over a kilometer from Kakoli’s home.
Taslim used to work in a factory in Mumbai and earned 15,000 rupees a month. When the lockdown began, the factory closed and she returned home to be with her 55-year-old mother Sufiya Begum.
“I had some money when I returned on April 10, after which I was quarantined for 15 days. But the money started to run out and the owner of the factory in Mumbai didn’t call me back either. So I went to the panchayat office and applied for a NREGA work card. I received the card in June and started working in July. I worked for 16 days at a nearby road cleaning job and got Rs 3264 for that. Money is not much, but at least there is something. Other than that, with NREGA, there is at least some work to keep you sane these days. “
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