Section II - The "non-existence" of landless agri. labourers in the demography of Government programs
The Property Centric nature of Government Programs
Whenever the Government conceives of any program for agriculture it is always property-centric. There is also not much effort put in to create awareness to the farmers about the same and one should be an enlightened khata (patta) holder of a piece of land for you to avail of these benefits. Recently somebody was telling that by the time they got the information, the department people said that the beneficiaries have been already disctributed the benefits and they have to wait for the next batch!! What this means is that only the rich and influential people who have anyways access to everything also have access to these programs. The marginalised or the resource poor farmer doesn't get any information at all. Let alone the benefits.
The non-existence of the Landless Agricultural labourers in the demogaphy of the Government
Now let us come to the plight of the landless agricultural labourers or the resource poor ones. These are the people who are dependent on the work that they get from the land holding farmers. If there is good monsoon and all the other conditions are favourable these people get work and their livelihood gets somewhat taken care of but otherwise the only option left to them is migration in search of labour and the resultant proliferation of the cities / towns and the creation of slums and their associated health problems. Some of them also fighting for their land rights as well. For nearly 58 yrs their struggles have yielded very minimal results.
So on the one hand we have the small and the marginal farmers not able to fully utilise their lands and on the other we have the landless people who have been fighting for their land rights without any sort of entitlement. But the Government keeps coming up with one program or the other which is property-owner centric. Some examples:
• Suppose there is a drought in that area and the Government declares that the area is drought prone, you are entitled for "Drought Relief" if you are a khata (patta) holding farmer as has happened to the Bangalore Rural District this year(2006) with no rains
• Supposing there is floods and your crops are washed away then again you are entitled for flood relief if you are a khata (patta) holding farmer as has happened in Gulbarga and other districts this year
• The Crop Insurance schemes are for land holding farmers
• This year Karnataka Government announced that it would extend farm loans at 4 % and again it is for land holding farmers
• Many of you might have heard of the so called "Health Insurance" scheme started with much fanfare by the Karnataka government called as Yashaswini. Even this was property centric!! For more on this you can read my blog http://hippp.blogspot.com
• In our Magadi Intervention as part of our mainstreaming efforts we tried to involve the Horticulture Department in our efforts and we were surprised to know the many schemes that were there in the Government to go organic. There is a Rs. 30000 for construction of Vermi-Compost pit, Rs. 8000 for converting your farm in organic etc., etc., So we all got enthused that we could use the same for our intervention, so the community leader Ravi who is coordinating the three plots in Magadi went and met this Horticulture person who was helping us out but he came back disappointed and disillusioned because that fellow was not ready to extend any support without him bringing the Patta of the land which was in the Landholder's name and not in the name of the 5 women who were working on the land
As you can see from the above for the Government one simply doesn't exist if one doesn't have some property or the other. This brings us to the only instrument available for a landless agricultural labourer in times of distress is to register himself as an unemployed person in the village and ask for Employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act ( NREGA), the ONLY instrument provided by the government for such people in distress....
Whenever the Government conceives of any program for agriculture it is always property-centric. There is also not much effort put in to create awareness to the farmers about the same and one should be an enlightened khata (patta) holder of a piece of land for you to avail of these benefits. Recently somebody was telling that by the time they got the information, the department people said that the beneficiaries have been already disctributed the benefits and they have to wait for the next batch!! What this means is that only the rich and influential people who have anyways access to everything also have access to these programs. The marginalised or the resource poor farmer doesn't get any information at all. Let alone the benefits.
The non-existence of the Landless Agricultural labourers in the demogaphy of the Government
Now let us come to the plight of the landless agricultural labourers or the resource poor ones. These are the people who are dependent on the work that they get from the land holding farmers. If there is good monsoon and all the other conditions are favourable these people get work and their livelihood gets somewhat taken care of but otherwise the only option left to them is migration in search of labour and the resultant proliferation of the cities / towns and the creation of slums and their associated health problems. Some of them also fighting for their land rights as well. For nearly 58 yrs their struggles have yielded very minimal results.
So on the one hand we have the small and the marginal farmers not able to fully utilise their lands and on the other we have the landless people who have been fighting for their land rights without any sort of entitlement. But the Government keeps coming up with one program or the other which is property-owner centric. Some examples:
• Suppose there is a drought in that area and the Government declares that the area is drought prone, you are entitled for "Drought Relief" if you are a khata (patta) holding farmer as has happened to the Bangalore Rural District this year(2006) with no rains
• Supposing there is floods and your crops are washed away then again you are entitled for flood relief if you are a khata (patta) holding farmer as has happened in Gulbarga and other districts this year
• The Crop Insurance schemes are for land holding farmers
• This year Karnataka Government announced that it would extend farm loans at 4 % and again it is for land holding farmers
• Many of you might have heard of the so called "Health Insurance" scheme started with much fanfare by the Karnataka government called as Yashaswini. Even this was property centric!! For more on this you can read my blog http://hippp.blogspot.com
• In our Magadi Intervention as part of our mainstreaming efforts we tried to involve the Horticulture Department in our efforts and we were surprised to know the many schemes that were there in the Government to go organic. There is a Rs. 30000 for construction of Vermi-Compost pit, Rs. 8000 for converting your farm in organic etc., etc., So we all got enthused that we could use the same for our intervention, so the community leader Ravi who is coordinating the three plots in Magadi went and met this Horticulture person who was helping us out but he came back disappointed and disillusioned because that fellow was not ready to extend any support without him bringing the Patta of the land which was in the Landholder's name and not in the name of the 5 women who were working on the land
As you can see from the above for the Government one simply doesn't exist if one doesn't have some property or the other. This brings us to the only instrument available for a landless agricultural labourer in times of distress is to register himself as an unemployed person in the village and ask for Employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act ( NREGA), the ONLY instrument provided by the government for such people in distress....
posted by Prasanna Saligram at 6:38 AM
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