After women from villages stitched a flying start, local MLA’s complaint crashes ‘Godda Model’

These are among 1,500 women tailors — all villagers from Godda district of Jharkhand — who supplied uniforms to government school students and earned more than Rs 1.8 crore in wages, in all, between 2018 and 2020. There was “no looking back”, they thought, which prompted the Niti Aayog to hail the “Godda Model”in December 2020 as one that can be replicated by other aspirational districts in the state.

That was then.

As the new district administration took charge in 2020, an inquiry was initiated against the women of ‘Godda Model’ on allegations of irregularities made by local MLA Pradeep Yadav. In his complaint to Chief Minister Hemant Soren in September 2019, the Congress MLA alleged that money meant for school students was siphoned away. He demanded an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Result: payment to the SHG were stopped.

Although various inquiries commissioned by the Godda Deputy Commissioner (DC) could not find any irregularities, the SHG is yet to receive its dues: Rs 65 lakh in wages and Rs 75 lakh as vendor payments.

Asked why payment was stopped to the SHG, Godda DC Bhor Singh Yadav on Saturday told The Indian Express to get details from his office — “I am in a meeting”. He was not available for a comment on Monday as well.

Deputy Development Commissioner Chandan Kumar, who reports to the DC, said: “I checked with the department and did not find any irregularities. The SHGs should be paid their dues. It is up to the Deputy Commissioner to order it.”

At least 10 women of the SHG that The Indian Express spoke to said that the entire episode narrated their ordeal.

Lucy Jha, president of the SHG Phulo Jhano Saksham Aajeewika Sakhi Mandal, said, “God knows how many inquiries will be conducted on us. All we ask is for our dues — Rs 1.5 crore. We will seek work from private parties, but we need some capital… we don’t want to return to where we came from,”

As Adani Power worked to set up its plant in Godda in 2018, the company, as part of its CSR programme, trained women from surrounding villages in tailoring. Jha was one of the beneficiaries.

Under Samagra Siksha Abhiyan, students of government schools are given free uniforms either through DBT or school management committees, who, based on specific sizes of uniforms, procure them locally. Under the CSR programme, around 150 electronic sewing machines were installed at Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Itkiya.

Women from the SHG used this as their base to fulfil the orders.

As per minutes of meetings of the working committee of Samagra Siksha Abhiyan of Godda district, held on January 24, 2020: in December 2018, for the first time it was ideated that the SHG should be given the work, and as per directions given by the State Education Project Council, the then Godda Deputy Commissioner, Kiran Kumar Pasi, decided, as on January 2019, that Phulo Jhano Saksham Aajeewika Sakhi Mandal SHG will supply school uniforms to 1.46 lakh government school students, studying in class 1-8.

The money was not to be charged from the students; and the budget was Rs 8.76 crore, with Rs 600 earmarked per uniform.

The women who were part of this process belonged to SC/ST/General categories. They come from Poraiyahaat, Basant Rai, Patthargama, Mahgama, Sundarpahari areas of the district. Out of Rs 600 earmarked per uniform, Rs 113 was to go toward wages, the minutes show.

The SHG supplied this in the next five months with a start-up capital of Rs 25 lakh, given by the administration to purchase raw material.

The SHG said it needed initial money to procure raw material, diesel for generators, machine repair, labour charge, among others.

Shanta, who goes by her first name, said that before the pucca road was constructed, she and the other women used to walk for 45 minutes to the centre from their homes in early 2019.

“I used to wake up at 4 am, finish household chores including cooking and cleaning, and head to the Itkiya centre by 9 am and come back by 6 pm. I used to cook and clean again and it went on till 11 pm. I barely got six hours of sleep. I sacrificed a lot with an aim to put my children in private schools… Now I am barely able to pay the amount,” said Shanta, who is also the secretary of the SHG. She said they wrote to Chief Minister Hemant Soren about the issue, but did not receive any response.

Her only grievance is aimed at the administration, she said: “We worked day and night and did quality work. There is no irregularity because we as mothers are sewing clothes for our children. Even if the administration does not want to honour the memorandum, they should pay our dues so that we can start afresh.” The MoU dated October 14, 2019 read that the project timeline will be April 2019 to March 2024.

In a statement to the inquiry committee headed by SDO Godda, the SHG said: “We thank the government and we learnt a lot, more importantly we understood that even after more than 72 years of Independence why half of the population is still suppressed.”

The inquiry report, submitted in December 2020, also got an expert view which said that the uniform supplied to the students was of the same quality as passed by the district committee.

The bank account of the SHG was audited during the inquiry, and the auditor, as per the report, said: “…The SHG set up for women empowerment solves the problem of livelihood and makes them functionally stable. Phulo Jhano’s dress making activity at their production centre has transformed the lives of 100s of families. A total amount of Rs 1.83 crore as stitching and labour expenses are distributed among 1,000s of financially weaker sections of society.”

Monika Tudu, who bought a smartphone and a two-wheeler on EMIs from the wages, said she is left with five more instalments of Rs 3,500 each, which were supposed to be completed last September. “However, due to lack of money, I have not been able to pay. The agents come to me and harass me for money. Once they took my scooty, but I have got it back. I somehow borrowed some money to pay one more EMI, and the struggle is on to pay the next,” she said.

As per documents, 2019-20 onwards, an MoU was signed in October 2019 between the SHG and Samagra Siksha Abhiyan, Godda, but “without any capital” this time. So the SHG got all materials on a promise to pay vendors later.

The women said they were given a list of 1.95 lakh students for the next tranche, which they had stitched, but were given clothes only for 1.72 lakh students in the next four months. They said they had already stitched the remaining ones when they were told by the education department to hold supplies.

Although the SHG managed to get most of the amount, they are now left with Rs 1.4 crore pending, with Rs 65 lakh in wages.

Very few women now frequent the ITI building in Itkiya. Stacks of stitched clothes which the women were stopped from supplying lie in various corners, gathering dust.

MLA Pradeep Yadav and Adani’s CSR head at Godda, Subodh Singh, did not respond to calls or messages.