parijataka
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How MNREGS is destroying the rural economy
In Himachal non-existent monkeys are being chased away by MNREGS workers while in N Karnataka cotton farmers who have lost 12-18 crores due to non-availability of labour lost to MNREGS have left the cotton crop to wither away in the fields.
How Sonia Gandhi robbed Surjeet's lands and why Gouramma is angry with Shantappa: The Monkey Business of Mnregs
In Himachal non-existent monkeys are being chased away by MNREGS workers while in N Karnataka cotton farmers who have lost 12-18 crores due to non-availability of labour lost to MNREGS have left the cotton crop to wither away in the fields.
How Sonia Gandhi robbed Surjeet's lands and why Gouramma is angry with Shantappa: The Monkey Business of Mnregs
Read the full article at given link.Surjeet Sharma, a Gaddi pandit belonging to the scheduled tribes of Himachal Pradesh, clearly remembers the year 2005, when he married a gaddan from Chamba. Year 2005 was momentous for the Sharma's, not only because of the marriage of their only son but also because that year they had collectively made a decent profit in their fields and had brought their first automobile. Usually in Himachal, land holdings are modest because only a small proportion of the land mass is flat in these terrains and cultivation in the slopes is quite difficult, yet average yield per square meter is a lot higher than other parts of India because of the rich soil and abundant water. In the lower and mid hill ranges like Kangra, Hamirpur, Mandi etc. farming is a tri-annual ritual with three distinct peaks. Customarily, grains are grown during monsoon and summer, while vegetables during deep winters, thus paddy is an ideal monsoon crop followed by either pulses or wheat and potato during winters. Sharma's own 20 kanaals (about 2.5 acres) of ancestral agricultural property near Parore in Kangra district and the family of three, consisting of the elder Sharmas and their only son Surjeet, would all work in their fields to grow rice wheat and potatoes. Since it was difficult for just the three of them to maintain 20 kanaals of land, Surjeet had employed 2 other people in his fields in a unique rural ESOP (employee stock option) arrangement wherein he would not only pay them dehaari (daily wages) but also share with them 15% of the quarterly profits.
In 2005, Surjeet had harvested a bumper crop and had sold close to 100 quintals of potatoes in the local mandi in three months, earning a net profit of 40 thousand rupees. Having an entrepreneurial zeal, Surjeet brought a Maruti Suzuki Omni van in order to put his driving skills to better use. The idea was to use the van as a transportation tool during winters to get a better price for the potatoes in the Kangra mandi, rather than selling them at a lesser price in the local bazaars. He had also factored in large number of tourists that flock the region to visit Dharamshala and he would augment his income by ferreting these tourists as a part-time taxi driver. A logical business decision indeed, but Madam Sonia had other plans for him.
2012: Welcome to the land of MNREGS
Today Surjeet is a full-time taxi driver and has given up on agriculture as a means to earn livelihood. Instead he cultivates only about 5-6 kannals of land to cater to the annual requirements of the Sharma household, while the rest of the land is lying dry, unutilized"¦ it is as good as non-existent for the Sharmas, who are even contemplating about selling it off. His father is old and sick and almost bedridden, so he can no longer be expected to work in the fields. His former employees have been gobbled up by MNREGS and no new field hands are available, even his wife and mother prefer to work for MNREGS as it pays them handsomely for almost doing nothing (among other things MNREGS employs people to chase away/capture monkeys in the hill state). Between them, Surjeet's mother and wife bring home about 20 to 30 thousand rupees per annum because they are employed for 20 days a month for almost 7 months a year under MNREGS (if you are in the good books of the sarpanch or local authorities then you can always make more). In the small towns of Himachal even a middle class family can lead a happy life with less than 5 thousand rupees a month, so where is the need for the Sharmas to work hard in the fields? For a taxi driver, Surjeet is smart enough to know that this trajectory is potentially disastrous, he says, "we know that Sonia ji is giving us money for doing nothing, but what will happen to us in the future, only God knows"¦ in the process we have lost our lands though". Thus Surjeet has been reduced from an agricultural entrepreneur to a taxi driver by Madam Sonia.
Cut to Rampur village, on the Kembhavi-Hunsgi road, Yadgir district, deep northern Karnataka: (in the summer of 2012)
Shantappa Vaalikar belongs to a lower caste but owns 15 acres of irrigated land, he is also the head of a large joint family of two younger brothers and their wives and kids. The entire family works in the fields to produce Sona-Masoori rice two times a year, a variety that fetches a decent price in the market and is consumed heavily across south India. Despite of the fact that their fields run adjacent to the canal system of UKP (upper Krishna project), they have not been spared from the drought that has hit the state this year. Thus they have collectively decided to let go of the crop for the second peak. In fact the entire village is not cultivating Sona-Masoori this peak and all the lands are lying vacant for almost six months.
Although the water supply to these fields surrounding UKP did not completely dry up like say in the neighbouring region of Bombay Karnataka that depends on the Almatti dam and associated canal systems, yet they could not afford to take the risk of cultivating the crop as it is a costly affair these days. For instance, MNREGS has ensured that field labour won't be available for harvesting – as people have become too lazy to work after getting government doles – thus farmers in this region hire harvesting machines from Tamil Nadu, who charge anywhere between 40 to 60 thousand rupees a day (6 to 8 acres)! So one cannot take the huge risk of cultivating a crop without the adequate insurance of abundant water supply. In fact, if one travels in the rural hinterland of Surpur Taluq of Yadgir district, one is bound to encounter large amounts of white snowy material along the road-sides, it is the cotton from the adjoining fields that has automatically withered away due to lack of adequate labour in the harvest season. As per one local estimate, cotton farmers have lost somewhere between 12 to 18 Crore rupees in the last one year because of improper harvest timing.
Gouramma (Shantappa's wife) is angry these days as her husband goes missing every evening. Shantappa and his large joint family has a lot of free time on their hands for the last few months, so every evening the entire group of men folk visit the 11th century Shaivite temple of Dasimayya (the poet saint) in the neighbouring village of Mudnoor. There is a large half-constructed hall surrounding the temple where all the men of the twin villages gather in the evening, not for spiritual reasons mind you, but to indulge in gambling and drinking. Most of the men in that gathering are daily-wage labours of the MNREGS kind who get doles by the state for almost doing nothing, consequently having no qualms about gambling away the government money. Left to themselves, this group of men would want to live this way for eternity, without working and always gambling and drinking and indulging in carnal pleasures – maybe that is what Madam Sonia wants too.
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural (socio) Economy Gutterization Scheme:
These are not isolated instances, instead this is the story of India today. Rural socio-economy is being systematically destroyed in the name of Gandhi and socialism, as village after village are falling into the death traps of laziness and corrupt practices. Yes, this is also giving rise to huge amounts of corruption, for instance as a Sarpanch (who shall remain unnamed, for obvious reasons) in Himachal Pradesh explained how the work schematics are inflated in order to employ more number of people for more number of days for lesser amount of work so that everybody in the village is happy. Example: if there are 40 monkeys troubling crops in an area of say 100 hectares, then the number of monkeys is inflated to 400 and about 100 villagers are employed to chase away/capture these imaginary monkeys at the rate of 1 person for every 4 monkeys. This may sound all monkey business to the readers, but it is the absolute living truth that this writer has been witness to (people are employed as guards, as the central govt. is yet to give official clearance for monkey chasing under NREGA). In the process more number of villagers are also happy that they are getting paid for less (in some cases nil) work and the local village authorities are also happy as they can create dummy accounts to route the government money to their own pockets by artificially inflating work orders.
This is the Money Shankar Aiyer wet dream of Panchayati raj! The fundamental flaw of MNREGS is to expect a village pradhan to not only plan job works but also make judicious use of the work force to excute the works! It is creating a new set of Mai-Baap culture wherein the poor villagers are now totally subservient to the local authorities for their doles. The prognosis of such a system points at three major risk factors;
1.Socio-cultural upheaval leading to chaos in the society. When taken in the ethno-religious context, such a system is potentially dangerous in creating micro-imbalances at the village unit, reminiscent of the Mughal raj which ruled India despite being in minority because they controlled purse strings and also the ability to give out doles.
2.Impact on the work culture of rural India. Everybody is working a lot less and getting paid for being increasingly lazy with each passing day, for the government has incentivised laziness.
3.Corrupting the core of India. It is systematic nationalizing and ruralizing of secular-socialist corruption by the left-libbers. A whole generation of honest villagers are being encouraged to be dishonest and are being methodically co-opted into the don't-work-instead-practise-corrupt-methods-for-livelihood school of thought so that there is lesser outrage by the co-opted citizenry when the next big-ticket scam is unearthed.
This is Sonia Gandhi's 'inclusive' gift to India.
