Why low wages do not pass muster here

RURAL EMPLOYMENT: MYTH & REALITY

Hansa Purohit of Bujhiya Bada panchayat of Dungarpur's Sawghada block is one person who has helped her fellow villagers make the transition from being cogs in a government programme to people exercising their right to work.

The villagers have been earning between Rs 55 and Rs 60 per day as wages for working at the sites of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme when the minimum wage in the state is Rs 73.

"I asked the workers at the site to resist. I called a meeting and told them that they should not take money if the mate pays only Rs 55,'' she says. (A mate is also a job card holder but is in a supervisory role).

That was on May 21. "The workers agreed. We had not been paid for four muster rolls, each having 15 days,'' says the young villager.

"I got 200 workers to sign on a complaint and went to the panchayat secretary and told him that I was giving a copy to the Collector too. He made the payment to all workers in two hours at the rate of Rs 70, something unheard of in Rajasthan!" she said.

She also tried to help the workers in the neighbouring village who were getting a mere Rs 40. But they did not reject the money that was paid to them. So no resistance could be built, says Purohit.

Purohit says the social audit and padyatra conducted throughout the district in which every hamlet was covered by a team of 1,000 persons, led by people's organisations like Aruna Roy's Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and Waghad Kisan Majdoor Sangathan, the local grassroot arm of NGO Astha, created a mindset in the village which helped her in her fight for the right wages.

"We are also able to demand measurement of work and the engineer comes after every muster roll to measure work for each group and we are paid on this basis,'' she says.

While Sawghada block is an exception thanks to Purohit, most villagers elsewhere in Rajasthan are at the mercy of sarpanches and mates.

In Ravliya Kalan in Udaipur, workers laying a gravel road were getting Rs 45 irrespective of the amount of work put in by them. The average rate was being thrust on all.

Again, the payment was the same whether it was a rock or just soft mud. Sarpanch Bhawar Lal Bhatt says the majority of workers are old or women and they cannot work enough to get enough money. So the average does justice to all.

In Kodiyagunj panchayat in Bichiwada block of Dungarpur, the money is never more than Rs 58. It stays in the range of Rs 52, Rs 55 and Rs 58 , workers levelling a farmland said.

According to Shantilal, coordinator of Waghad Majdoor Kisan Sanghathan, the payment of average rates is unjust and amounts to exploitation. The mate should determine payment of groups of workers after measuring their output rather than thrust an arbitrary average on all, he says.

Udaipur district's Gogunda block Assistant Engineer Mohammad Hussain Bohra has an explanation.

"The Act says that work can be done in groups or individuals. From group work we are able to pay more "" say Rs 49 instead of Rs 45. Besides, the heat here was killing and people are not so strong," he says.

(This is the third of a seven-part series)