The case of the disappearing ponds

This piece was carried in Infochange (http://www.infochaqngeindia.org/) in June 2010

http://infochangeindia.org/201006268358/Governance/Features/The-case-of-the-disappearing-ponds.html

The case of the disappearing ponds


By Pradeep Baisakh

An RTI inquiry in Kusmal village in Orissa’s Nuapada district revealed that though in official records seven farm ponds have been built under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, not a single pond exists in reality. Across this district, which has high levels of migration, Rs 77 lakh has been misappropriated under the job guarantee scheme by unscrupulous administration officials at all levels

The pond the Junior Engineer tried to dig after expose (photo: Khuturam Sunani)

In Nuapada district of Orissa, farm ponds costing Rs 77 lakh, dug under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), have vanished – or never existed.

In October 2009, Khirasindhu Sagria, a youth from Kusmal village in Birighat panchayat under Khariar block of Nuapada district, sought information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from the Kariar block office about the status of seven farm ponds that were to be dug in his village under MNREGA. A resolution had been passed in the gram sabha in 2007-08 to this effect.

The answer to his query was that all the ponds were completed as per records, at a cost of Rs 2.14 lakh. The fact is that not a single pond exists. The projects were started in 2008-09 but abandoned after some time. Panchayat and block level officials suggested that the ponds were washed away by the rain!

The pond-vanishing phenomenon has been occurring all over the district. Construction of about 2,000 farm ponds on private lands has been undertaken officially in the district from 2007-08 to 2009-10 at an estimated cost of more than Rs 10 crore. Some Rs 3.74 crore has already been spent. But verification of 200 farm ponds in eight panchayats in Khariar, Boden, and Sinapali blocks reveals that 41 farm ponds are non-existent (about 20%). So the quantum of money misappropriated in the form of ghost works is close to Rs 77 lakh in the district.

Apart from these non-existent ponds, Ajit Panda, a social activist who has studied the corruption in the farm ponds, says that “in about 50% of the remaining farm ponds, the work expenditure has been shown to be much higher than the work done. If we include the half-done farm ponds in the calculation, misappropriation would be more than 40% of the total expenditure.”

Khirasindhu Sagria-the whistle blower (Photo: Khuturam Sunani)

In the case of Kusmal village about which the RTI inquiry was made, once the gram sabha passed the resolution on building the ponds, the gram sathi, Rina Mandal, asked the beneficiaries in May 2008 to start the work and assured them that the money would be released. Later, her husband Jogeswar asked the beneficiaries to stop the work and told them they could get the full payment even without digging the pond. He asked for a bribe of Rs 5,000 from each of the workers and managed to amass a sum of Rs 35,000.

Asked why they gave the bribe, Bidyadhar Majhi, one of the beneficiaries, said, “We feared that unless we give him the money he may scrap the projects altogether.” The other beneficiaries are Nutan Sagria, Renudhar Gahir, Sahadev Majhi, Makarsingh Majhi, Parakshita Majhi and Kokil Majhi.

According to the procedure laid down in the MGNREGA, the block development officer (BDO) must put his signature on the final report after receiving a photograph of the completed pond. In this case the BDO and the junior engineer have both signed, though the pond does not exist.

There are other irregularities. Muster rolls have been fudged to adjust the payment; names of dead persons and teachers and students of the local school show up on the muster roll. Hari Majhi is dead, Nirekha Jagat is paralysed and Nimesh Sunani is a 10-year-old student, but their names appear in the muster roll to suggest that they have worked on the pond projects.

The BDO, Nabin Chandra Naik, and the collector, Bishnu Prasad Panda, were informed about the fraud in January 2010 but took no action. After Khirasindhu Sagria blew the whistle on the scam, the junior engineer, S Samantray, attempted to dig the ponds using machines (which is forbidden under MGNREGA), and the gram sathi, Rina Mandal, foisted a false case of rape and chain-snatching on him.

Rajkishor Mishra, Adviser to the Supreme Court Commission on Right to Food, made an e-complaint on March 5, 2010, to the Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the panchayati raj department of the state, S N Tripathy, and the Project Director of MGNREGA, S K Lohani, and eventually wrote to Amita Sharma, Additional Secretary, Union Ministry of Rural Development.

Ashwani Kumar, member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) wrote to Amita Sharma urging her to send a central team to investigate the allegations. The rural development ministry despatched a national monitoring team headed by Colonel U B Singh which interacted with the beneficiaries, officials and other stakeholders in April 2010.

The chief minister of the state, Naveen Patnaik, has ordered appropriate action against the collector and the project director of the District Rural Development Agency, Akshya Jena. Four officials -- the present BDO of Khariar block, Nabin Chandra Naik, the former BDO Chita Ranjan Bangola, the Additional BDO, Bijaya Kumar Muduli and the Assistant Engineer Keshab Mahanty -- have been suspended.

Termination notices have been given to the junior engineer and the gram sathi and FIRs have been filed against them. Departmental proceedings against the Asst Engineer and the BDO were initiated.

Even though punitive actions have been initiated against the erring officials, the larger issue remains: what about the entitlement of the poor labourers which was siphoned off by the greedy officers? Will the government compensate their entitlements and loss?

The non-existen farm pond of Makarsingh Majhi (Photo: Khuturam Sunani)

The district of Nuapada is probably the most neglected in the state when it comes to implementation of MGNREGA. There are 100,000 job card holders of whom only about 18,000 households have been provided work in the last financial year (2009-10) for an average of 26 days. This is the official figure. Given the degree of corruption discussed above, the real benefit to the people from MGNREGA can well be imagined.

According to the DRDA, if it gets timely release of money under MGNREGA, it could plan and implement better. However, Khuturam Sunani, a journalist, says, “The district has been unable to furnish the utilisation certificates in time, failing which release of money has been inconsistent. Government records received under RTI reveal that in Komna block alone about 50% of the farm ponds which started in 2007-08 and 2008-09 remain incomplete even today.”

In one case, labourers have not been paid their wages, amounting to Rs 3.16 lakh, for the past two years. Despite the Lok Adalat on MGNREGA held in the district in February 2010 ordering the administration to act, things have not been settled yet. When the central monitors asked for the records, the block authorities were unable to show the same.

Nuapada is prone to high levels of migration. People from here go to work in Hyderabad and elsewhere in brick kilns in very poor conditions. One of the objectives of MGNREGA is to reduce migration but this it has conspicuously failed to do due to the apathy of the state government and inefficiency and corrupt practices of the district administration.

(Pradeep Baisakh is a freelance journalist based in Orissa)


Infochange News & Features, June 2010

A school at work!

This piece was published in GRASSROOTS in June 15, 2010 issue

A school at work!

A new ray of hope for migrant child labourers…


PRADEEP BAISAKH, Odisha

A migrant child working in a brick kiln in Tamil Nadu (Photo by Biju George)

Sunita Tandi, the eight-year-girl from Jharani village under Tureikala block of Balangir district in Odisha has migrated to Bomalaramaro area of Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh. She came along with her parents who have gone in October 2009, to work in the brick kilns there. Sunita is from ST community. Like any other migrant child, she also would have discontinued her study and joined back in same class three when she comes back to her village school in June/July 2010. But thanks to the initiative taken by a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Aide et Action to run worksite schools at brick kilns in Andhra, she is now continuing her study. Sanu Behera, the Odia teacher who teaches about sixty students in the school there says “Sunita will appear her annual tests here in Odia language and will be elevated to class four after returning to her village school”. Necessary order have been passed by the Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan (SSA), Odisha for acknowledging the exams conducted in the brick kiln schools. A similar initiative for study of the migrant children has also been initiated by the aforesaid organisation in Tamil Nadu for the Odia migrant children.

Lakhs of people from Western districts of Odisha have traditionally been migrating for last 30 odd years to Andhra and Tamil Nadu to work in brick kilns. This sort of migration is termed as distressed or forced migration as people do not have enough of livelihood option in the home districts. Even after the enactment of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the situation has not improved much due its lackadaisical implementation in the state. People generally migrate with families and stay in the work place for seven to eight months. Child goes to the brick kilns as a child labour by design as s/he constitutes a part of the work unit called Pathuria. The Pathuria constitutes two adult members and a child who mould bricks. As a result the child loses out his/her education and becomes a labour in making. The migration starts during September/October and the families stay till May/June next year in the worksites. As the annual examinations are conducted in the schools in April/May, the child fails to attend the same in its village school due to his/her absence. So when they come back they continue in the same class and again in September they migrate out. After this cycle continues for a year or two, the child eventually drops out of school. A study conducted in 2009 by Migration Information and resource centre (MiRC), Aide et Action in western Odisha suggests that about 23 % of the total migrant children drops out in the process and still alarming is about 28% of such children just do not go to schools.

Some initiatives were taken by the CSOs in Odisha and the state government to start seasonal hostels by name of Residential Child care Centre (RCC) in the source place to accommodate such children when their parents are migrating. At one time RCCs could retain 5000 children in the state.

The initiative that started in 2000 functioned well for four to five yeas but eventually faltered due to apathy of the state. This time around, in Balangir district of Odisha about 49 RCCs have been started under National Child Labour Project (NCLP) but it was done only in January/February 2010 when all the children had already migrated.

As supplement to RCC, Action Aid, a Civil Society Organisation had started the trend of running work site schools in the brick kilns in destination places. This model is doing still well with other CSOs like Aide et Action joining the initiative and extending it to Tamil Nadu. The SSA, Odisha has agreed to support both the leading CSOs in this initiative namely, Aide et Action and Action Aid in running brick kiln schools in the destination places in AP and TN. The SSAs in TN and AP are sharing their primary school premises for the Odia migrant children and providing Mid Day Meals (MDM) to them. Odia teachers have been appointed by these organisations for teaching the Odia children in brick kilns. After completion of education in destination places, annual exams will be conducted by the same teachers there and then the children will be mainstreamed in their native schools and admitted into the higher classes. But that’s not enough as both these agencies are able to provide primary education to only 1000 migrant children in both these states. This model has to qualify from the stage of experimentation to the stage of accepted state policies.

Odia migrant children in a worksite school in Andhra Pradesh (photo by Pradeep Baisakh)

In wake of enactment of Right to Education Act (RTEA), coordination is being done by the CSOs in AP, Odisha and Tamil Nadu with the respective education departments for providing education to the migrant children. As a result of this effort, this time around, state of Tamil Nadu has come up with a draft action plan to ensure early child care and education to all the children migrating to the state from other states and the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to impart education to 50,000 such migrant children in association with the CSOs.

Apart from the issue of education of the migrant children, the issue of child labour also remains as an issue of concern. Sunita, who attend the worksite school in Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh continues to support her parents in brick making. She has to put extra hours for it as she also has to attend school and do her home work. Parents of Sunita, Gourang and Miriki Tandi say “We are quite happy that the schooling of our child has not been stopped here. We are trying hard to reduce work burden on her so that she concentrate on her studies.” Virish Sannap, the supervisor of the kiln where Sunita’s parents work says “in other kilns children are working, but in my kiln we do not encourage child labour!”. But in reality children do work as discussed above and they constitute a vital part of the work unit-Pathuria.

Umi Daniel from Aide et Action says “Children’s education is an entry point for us. Immediately raising hard issues like child labour in kilns is fraught with risks of backlash from the brick kiln owners. Gradually we will take up that aspect and influence the governments of Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to ban child labour in the kilns”. Till then, let’s hope that the brick kiln schools would lend them some light.