The marginalised from Western Odisha who migrate out of the state lead difficult lives

By: Pradeep Baisakh

Original Article :- http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/movement-worse

Movement for worse

The marginalised from Western Odisha who migrate out of the state lead difficult lives

Bhubaneswar Bindhani has not heard of a UNDP Human Development Report Paper, ‘Migration and Human Development’. It is quite likely the authors of the 2009 report did not take note of the fortunes of this resident of Nuagaon village in Odisha’s Nuapada district when they wrote, “migration fosters development of the migrant people.” They also perhaps did not take note of many other people from Odisha’s western districts who migrate every year to work in sub-human conditions at brick kilns and construction sites in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

In 2010, eight members of Bindhani’s family sought work in different parts of Andhra Pradesh to return a loan of Rs 27,000. Non-profit ActionAid’s statistics show 200,000 people migrated from the western districts of Odisha to work in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh. Data compiled by another non-profit, Migration Information and Resource Centre (MIRC), shows 150,000 people migrated from Balangir district in 2009-2010. According to this non-profit, most migrants are landless or small or marginal farmers, and belong to the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities.

The condition of the migrant workers of this area is well encapsulated by the Inter-state Migrant Workmen’s (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Act, 1979. The Act’s preamble reads, “At the time of recruitment, sardars or khatadars promise that wages calculated in piece-rate basis would be settled every month, but usually this promise is never kept. Once the worker comes under the clutches of a contractor, he takes him to a far-off place on payment of railway fare. No working hours are fixed for these workers.”

Miriki Tandi of Balangir district, who worked at a brick kiln in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district, told this writer that brick kiln workers labour for 18 hours a day throughout the season (October/November to May/June) for a weekly allowance of Rs 300. A typical labour unit constitutes two adult members and a child. This unit is supposed to make 150,000 to 200,000 bricks in seven months. The families usually eat broken rice (chicken fodder) with dal and sometimes a little curry. “A good meal at a brick kiln is a dream for us,” lamented Tandi.

An MIRC study notes that more than 80 per cent of migrant children work with their parents. The study also notes that 10 per cent of the total migrants are in the age group of 6-14, who lose education for seven months in a year. It points out that 49 per cent of such children go to schools when they are not labouring in other states; the rest are either dropouts or never enrolled in the school due to uninterrupted migration. In the destination areas only a handful of children get education in schools run by NGOs.

Very often, the workers are tortured by employers. In April 2010, newspapers in Odisha reported the death of a migrant worker from Balangir, Rupadhar Bariha. Kept as a bonded labourer along with his family at a brick kiln in Nalgonda district, Bariha was beaten to death by kiln owner Jagan Seth. Last year, the Balangir administration had to rescue people from the district working as bonded labourers in brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh’s Ranga Reddy district. Most brick kilns in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh as well as in parts of Odisha are not registered under company laws and are rarely monitored by labour departments.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could have helped the migrants. But the scheme has not really worked well in Odisha. In Balangir, for example, 61,000 of the 245,000 job card holders were covered under the scheme in 2009-2010. These job card holders have got an average of 43 days of employment, as per official figures. In Nuapada district only 18 per cent of the job cards (108,000) got an average of 27 days of employment in 2009-2010.

The author is a freelance journalist based in Bhubaneswar. He can be contacted at 2006pradeep@gmail.com

2010 had its own kaleidoscopic impacts on Balangir

Written by Sudhir Mishra

Courtesy:- Daily Pioneer

The intense cold wave situation prevalent is all set to sweep out the year 2010 to pave the path for 2011, but as the remarkable past remains indelible in the annals of history, the district in 2010 was marked with the unprecedented presence of the Maoists, cultivation of banned Bt cotton and maize promoted by Monsanto, move to set up thermal plant besides having already hogged the headlines for the embarrassing starvation deaths.

Red Signal: A band of suspected red ultras, numbering around 100, had reportedly enquired about the village and nearby localities to a local youth while scouting their ways through the forest near Masina village in Khaprakhol block on August 25 night.

The Maoists launched their Jan Sampark Abhiyan in Masina and other villages in a bid to induct new recruits.

As per the police sources, the red rebels have been holding meetings since February while their presence was well-felt in August.

“We carried out combing operation on August 26 and 27 and with joining of the Special Operation Group (SOG) jawans, the operation was intensified from August 28,” informed SP Ajaya Sarangi.

Meanwhile, the ultras have divided into several small groups and are still pursuing their Jan Sampark, sources confided.

Hunger Beckons: The death of five members of Jhintu Bariha family of Chhabripali village due to alleged starvation, even after six decades of Independence, yet again attracted the media attention and rocked both the State and Centre.

While the district administration toiled hard downplaying the sham as death due to malaria and malnutrition, scores of visitors, including the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Rapporteur had visited the village and the villagers had shown him the wild seeds and roots they consume during the lean period.

Empowering ‘no-industry district’ via Thermal Plant: Just to ward off the ‘no industry district’-stigma, an attempt was made by the local young and energetic MP Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and under his initiative, the Sahara group of companies is going set up a 1,320 MW Thermal Power Plant at Lutherbandh in Titiligarh, which evokes sharp opposition from the locals apprehending land and livelihood losses.

However, the company seems to be proceeding in its efforts by launching the welfare measures like ambulance and health camps in its peripheral areas.

Craze for banned Bt Cotton, Monsanto Maize: Unprecedentedly, the craze for the banned Bt cultivation soared up among the farmers across the district here without knowing its long term implications on soil and ecology.

To tackle the pest menace on crops and act quickly, an e-pest surveillance scheme was also launched in the district on a pilot basis.

Saviour rain turns Monster: Erratic rain wreaked havoc on agriculture. While deficient rainfall had augured in a drought-like situation earlier, the unseasonal rain, on the eve of paddy harvest, played spoiled sport hitting further a bolder blow on the backbone of the farmers.

Democratic Uprising: For the first time, the townsfolk protested before the Shailashree royal palace against the apathy of the local MP and MLA in fulfilling the longstanding demand of filling up the vacant teacher posts of Rajendra College and other colleges of the town.

Nonstop Labour Migration: It all seems to be a perennial stream as there is no stop to the usual migration of large number of labour force in quest of greener pastures despite the hullabaloos on violation of Human Rights, protection measures, poverty alleviation schemes and policies and steep decline in the traditional water harvesting structures.

A damn to healthcare: Besides other deadly diseases, HIV/AIDS is spreading fast both in the rural and urban pockets of the district having claimed 46 death toll and gripped 368 persons with no medicine and vacant laboratory technician posts turning the ART centre a mere bill-board.

Silver lining: Amid such dark spots on the bright moon of the district’s firmament, the silver lining had been with the boys here having excelled in the Inter-State Junior Badminton Championship and Kabbadi.

While local BJD MP Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo went on a visit to the USA and Israel to acquaint himself with the nuances of management and development along with other young Indian MPs, former Law Minister and former local MLA Narsingha Mishra was appointed member of the National Law Commission, former minister and incumbent Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo as leader of the BJP legislature party in the Assembly and Kantabanji Congress MLA Santosh Singh Saluja created history by hurling the pen stand at the Assembly Speaker.

Sniti Mishra excelled in the Zee Saregama competition, students excelled in the HSC examination et al. Notwithstanding that, the optimistic denizens of the district are hopeful that the year 2011 brings in cheers in the faces of all.

Childhoods of hunger and want.....

Written by :- HARSH MANDER Courtsey :- The Hindu In much of rural India, hunger is still an everyday reality and often the only way out is debt-bondage…

Memories of a childhood lived with hunger are stark, and heartbreakingly different from those of all other children. Bansi Sabar from Bolangir in Orissa recalls that his father toiled hard from morning to evening as a bonded halia. He used to eat in his employers' home and would get 15 kg paddy for the whole month. “Whatever food I bring home is always insufficient for you,” his father would cry out in frustration. His mother, though sickly, used to gather different green leaves, flowers, kardi (smooth bamboo), tamarind and mangoes from the forest, which they ate with water-rice. “That was almost all water with a few grains of rice floating in it,” commented Bansi wryly. Many days they had to sleep hungry. Similarly, Drupathi Malik's mother used to collect all the rice they could manage to get in a day and put it in a container, mix it with salt and all the members except her would sit to eat from the same container. She explains that there was never much to justify use of different plates. Their father would allow the children to eat more and later any left over rice or water was eaten by her mother.

A heart-touching saga of the sufferings....

Even more harrowing for a parent than to send out a small child to work, is to send him into debt bondage, which is still not uncommon in many parts of rural, and especially tribal India. Indradeep earned his own food as soon as he was four years old, as a bonded kutia in the sahukar's home in Bolangir. He rose early to graze cows and bullocks and carry food to the fields, all seven days a week, every month of the year without any break. In return, his employers gave him tea and mudhi in the morning and a meal at noon and 12 kilograms paddy for a year as remuneration. As he entered his 21st year, not much had changed except that he graduated into an adult bonded worker or halia.

Indradeep in time married, and only one son, Sadhu, survived. Whenever they would walk past the village school, he noticed how his little son gazed at it with interest and longing. He resolved that whatever it cost him, he would not send his son out to work as a bonded child labourer — as generations in his family had done before him, as long back as they could remember. Instead, he and his wife would willingly shoulder his burden and send him to school. Life held together for them until Sadhu reached 14 years, and had passed Class 7.

Disaster again struck, when Indradeep was diagnosed with TB and nearly died. He was admitted in hospital for prolonged treatment. They sold the little gold which his wife wore in her ears, which had helped bail them out often in the past, when they had mortgaged it for loans at the doorstep of the moneylender. They also mortgaged her gold nose-ring. In the end, Indradeep could survive only with a blinded eye and a crippled body, with loss of normal functioning in one side of the body and heavy burdens of debt. He could no longer depend on his own hard labour, which had been his only wealth.

His young son realised that it was his turn now to assume his responsibilities, which he did readily. On his own, Sadhu took the decision of quietly dropping out of school when his father was admitted in the hospital, and went to work like his father in the fields of landlords, and he grazed their cows. He then got in touch with other people in the village who regularly migrated, and left for the brick-kilns in Hyderabad when he was 14, for an advance of Rs. 900. He has continued to migrate in bonded conditions after that every year. Slowly they were able to repay the loans and sustain themselves. We were witness to his tearful departure one year, when he migrated for an advance of Rs. 8,000. Before leaving, he gave Rs. 500 to his parents and released her mother's nose jewel from mortgage for Rs. 1,000.

It still weighs heavily on Indradeep's heart that the boy could not study. But he is proud that his son is responsible and caring, “He does not waste even a single rupee on himself, and saves it all for his family.”

In this way, each generation valiantly but hopelessly battles hunger, both for the generation that has passed, and the one that is to come.

Finally Balangir Medical College will become reality !!

The state government has given a green signal to this RVS Educational Trust to set up the proposed Medical College and Hospital in Balangir district.

Coimbatore-based RVS Group of Institutions, led by Dr KV Kuppusamy, is managing 87 Educational Institutions through out the Country. 

The high-level committee, headed by Development Commissioner Satya Prakash Nanda, has favoured the RVS Group's proposal out of a total of six which came in response to the WODC's offer.

Approving the recommendations of a high-level committee, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has asked the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) to go ahead with a MoU for the purpose.

Planning and coordination Minister Anananga Udaya Singhdeo also discussed with the WODC officials in this regard and the MoU would be signed some time Next week . 

The WODC had invited expression of interest for the Medical College and Hospital in Balangir district last year in view of Shree Balaji Education and Charitable Trust backing out of the project.

The RVS Group will invest at least Rs 100 crore, while the WODC would provide a Rs 10-crore grant and 25 acres of land in Balangir. The Medical College will have an intake capacity of 100 with a 300-bed Hospital at its initial stage. 

Subsequently it would be enhanced to a 500-bed Hospital and gradually to a 1,000-bedded super specialty Hospital . 

Source :- Orissadiary.com

Exclusive Photo of Balangir Violence

Crime Branch to investigate Balangir Violence

The State Government today asked the Crime Branch to inquire into the Balangir violence triggered by the death of an engineering student in an accident on October 24. While the accident was caused by a police van, another student injured in police lathicharge succumbed in the VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla the next day.

Police registered two separate cases in this connection. On the first day, Shakti Prasad Mohanty, a student of the Shushree Institute of Technology, Balangir died on the spot as he was run over by a police van.

The same day another student, Sashi Kumar Panda was admitted to the VSS Medical College and Hospital.

The incidents gave rise to a lot of public resentment and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded the arrest of the Balangir Superintendent of Police for inept handling of the situation.

Chhatra Congress called Balangir and western Orissa bandh to protest police excesses. A release issued by the police headquarters here maintained that the inquiry has been handed over to the Crime Branch for a fair and impartial investigation after public hue and cry over the matter.

The State Government has also appointed retired judge of the High Court Justice SK Mohanty to inquire into the violence.

Justice Mohanty will submit his report within three months.

Meanwhile, Congress has demanded that the District Collector and SP be removed by the State Government for an impartial inquiry.

Balangir Student agitation Moves across Western Orissa

BURLA: Out of the several injured person in Police lathicharge on Saturday,one student called Sashikant Panda succumbed to his injuries at the VSS Medical College and Hospital at Burla on Sunday.

Sashikant was hit on his head by Police personnel when police lathi-charged the angry mob of students on Saturday evening.He died at around 11 am in the morning but information was made public by noon 2 PM. It is also alleged that the doctors in VSS medical college misbehaved Sashikant's father and neglected his treatment as well. As soon as the news of Sashikant was made public various student union in Burla came out to street.They forcefully entered the post-Morten room and took Sashi's dead body with them.When reports last came in they have kept his dead body on the main road of Burla and are demanding strict action against police and the doctors who are responsible for the negligence in treatment.Students are very angry and they are burning tyre. Sambalpur Collector and SP have rushed to the spot to negotiate with the agitating students. Meanwhile Sambalpur town is also tense as all the student union in Western Orissa have joined the agitation.

Another student Saroj Biswal who was also severely beaten by Balangir police is said to be in critical condition.He is now shifted to Kalinga hospital and is kept in the ICU.

Another Young businessman from Balangir called Mukesh Keshwani is also said to be critical.Yesterday when the students ranshaked his Shop,Mukesh was trying to close his shop when Police arrived and beat him indiscriminately due to which he suffered multiple fracture and is kept in ICU in VSS medical college Burla.Doctors have recommended an emergency operation on him to save his life.

Balangir Police atrocities doesn't stop there.They took many innocent labourers and have detained them in Jail till now.Many businessman are also said to be taken by the police .

Tommorow on 25th October the Youth Congress of Orissa,Balangir Student congress,Balangir Chambers of Commerce,Balangir Bar Association as well as Western Orissa Student Union,Koshal Student Union and many more Organisation have called Western Orissa Bandh to protest this Police atrocities.

Meanwhile it has been alleged that all these disturbance started when a local SI of Balangir named Karkara misbehaved  Late Shakti Prasad Mohanty's father and asked him to forget about this incident.He also ordered lathi charge in the Hospital premises to disperse the student with out any permission from his higher authority.This act of police escalated the situation.Mr. Karkara has a dubious record of such atrocities.

Today Balangir Dist Peace Committee and Balangir Citizen Committee has demanded strong action aginst these Policeman.