THE All India Agricultural Workers Union has decided to organise a national seminar highlighting the government attacks on social security apparatus in the country. The central working committee that met at Vijayawada on January 17-18 decided to launch a two month long campaign on social security related issues throughout the country. While placing the report before the CWC, Vijayaraghavan, general secretary, said that the Indian agriculture over the last one year is facing severe crisis which has impacted the employment opportunity for agricultural workers seriously. The agrarian scenario reflects the consequences of delayed monsoon followed by lowering the net sown area. 18 states experienced deficit rainfall and ended up with the danger of drought. The collapsing irrigation networks has aggravated the situation further. This is more evident in the case of southern states where considerably good portion of agriculture is dependent on reservoirs in Krishna, Godavari and Kaveri basins. The cumulative effect of all these is immense loss of farm based employment opportunities for agricultural workers, said Vijayaraghavan. The drought like situation also contributed to the price hike as the government has calculatedly backtracked the public distribution system and reduced the number of beneficiaries and also the quantum of benefits under the PDS.

The AIAWU decided to highlight the vagaries of agricultural workers whose major share of family consumption is linked to the effective functioning of public distribution system. Though the ministry of rural development issued a circular to that affect, it did not scale up the funding, thus leaving the MNREGA workers to end up with the lower than notified wages. As a result, the intended benefits are yet to reach the agricultural workers in the drought effected states. There is a danger in the government’s move – in the name linking with the Indira Awas Yojana, there is a threat of diverting the wage component of MNREGA towards national skill development mission in the name of skilling the youth, particularly building workers to meet the needs of housing construction. This not only reduces the employment opportunities for non-skilled agricultural workers but also reduces burden on the real estate lobby which can hire the skilled building workers at the cost of government exchequer and agricultural worker’s key source of livelihood.

The land acquisition policies adopted by several state governments in different guise, is ultimately ruining the employment opportunities of agricultural workers in the villages. The CWC demands immediate enforcement of employment related provisions for agricultural workers in the  2013 Land Acquisition Act immediately.

The CWC also decided to highlight the issue of landless and homelessness in the country. The CWC criticised the government for its partisan attitude towards the rural poor and for just focusing on the urban, capital intensive sectors and foreign multinationals at the cost of Indian villages, which will have grave consequences for the country’s food security as well. The CWC felt that the anti-poor, anti-village policies of governments are compounding and deepening the agrarian crisis that forced the agricultural workers to migrate to cities to sell their labour power at cheaper prices thereby ensuring the profit maximisation of corporates. The CWC expressed its solidarity to the movement of landless and houseless under the leadership of Bhoo Hakkula Parirakshana Porata Vedika in which the AP agricultural workers union has taken the leading role.