Prompted by a series of recent alleged starvation deaths in the State and repeated attacks on their right to food and work, close to 1,000 NREGA workers and other rural labourers from 12 districts under the banner of Right to Food Campaign Jharkhand and NREGA Watch converged at Birsa Chowk in city and sat on Dharna on Wednesday.
Right to Food Campaign Convenor Asharfi Nand Prasad said on the day that the Government was suffering from technical glitch epidemic at least in Public Distribution System (PDS) in the State. “We don’t question the Government’s desire of feeding everyone. But the technical glitches with Aadhaar seeding, bank account and verification processes have made the entire process hellsome for the poor,” said Prasad.
Vilas Singh from Barwadih said during dharna that he was still struggling to get his wages, months after working under NREGA. He said that he was initially told that his account was closed. He then went through a long process of KYC update and Aadhaar authentication, but the payment system is still returning an “invalid Aadhaar” error message.
Rajendran Narayanan from Azim Premji University explained how, based on a detailed analysis of NREGA payments, he and his colleagues had found that Rs 1,200 crores of compensation money was due to workers. Of this, the Government admits only Rs 519 crores, and just Rs 30 crores have actually been paid.
“The Government is paying only a fraction of the compensation due to NREGA workers for delays in payments. Failure to raise NREGA wages is another injustice done to NREGA workers. In Jharkhand, the NREGA wage rate was raised (from Rs 162 per day) by five rupees last year, and just one rupee this year,” said NREGA Watch Convenor James Herenz.
Similar grim tales were heard from dozens of others in public distribution system during the dharna which counted complaints like cancellation of ration cards due to failed Aadhaar linkage, missing names on the ration card, biometric failures, and katauti (cuts) by corrupt dealers as demon in system. Manikchand from a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) in Garhwa explained that even PVTG families in Jharkhand are often deprived of PDS rations as the new ‘dakiya system’ of direct delivery to their homes routinely fails.
The PDS in Jharkhand, already weakened by compulsory biometric authentication, is in danger of being further undermined by a transition to cash transfers. Akash Ranjan and Afzal Anis reported the findings of a quick investigation of the DBT system recently introduced in Nagri block of Ranchi district.
“Poor people in Nagri are running from pillar to post, trying to extract cash from the bank (often without knowing which account the money has been sent to) so that they can buy their food rations at Rs 32 per kg – instead of Re 1/kg in the earlier system – from the ration shop,” said Prasad.
There was also much discussion of the recent starvation deaths. Taramani Sahu, the courageous woman who drew attention to the starvation death of an 11-year old girl (Santoshi Kumari) in Simdega, gave a detailed account of the facts. “From August 20, 2017 onwards, I tried to help Santoshi’s family to get a new ration card, after the old ration card was cancelled for lack of Aadhaar linking. Chief Secretary ordered mass cancellation of ration cards not linked with Aadhaar on March this year. But Santoshi died, after going for eight days without food, before a new ration card was issued,” said Taramani.