THE central working committee of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) said that the union budget 2020-21 is pro-corporate and anti-people. In a two-day meeting held in Delhi from February 19, the committee discussed various issues concerning the agrarian sector including methods to strengthen the public distribution system, efficient implementation of central flagship and other welfare schemes and passed resolution against the decision of the Supreme Court on reservations for SC/ST/OBCs in government jobs and promotions.

The committee said that the union budget 2020 does not address burning issues of livelihood and unemployment which arose due to the persistent economic and agrarian crisis. The budget furthers the neoliberal economic reform agenda by further advancing the interests of the finance capital and promoting the disinvestment of public infrastructure and flagship public sector companies, especially the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), it said. The working committee announced that it would organise protests on April 2 in districts and state centres across the country.

Highlighting the issues of livelihood of the rural poor, the AIAWU said that the government is deliberately working to dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) which can be seen in the decrease in the budget allocations by 13.3 per cent which amounts to Rs 9,501 crore. While the allocation for MNREGA was Rs 71,001 crore for the year 2019-20, it has been now cut down to Rs 61,500 crore in the current budget. The share of the allocations in the union budget was drastically reduced from 4 per cent in 2009 to only 2 per cent in 2020. “Our union is committed to strengthening the MNREGA and is in struggle for its better implementation as this is the only hope for work in rural India. We will be mobilising rural masses on the state specific issues on MNREGA to mount pressure on authorities to provide work on demand and timely payment of wages on prescribed rates,” the AIAWU said.

The AIAWU came down heavily on the government for failing to implement flagship programmes at the ground level. It said that the poor implementation of the Food Security Act is forcing rural people to starve either because of the unavailability of food grains or due to their high prices despite their availability. The decline in consumption of the rural population is noticed when in the same period, the production of rice has increased by 8 per cent, wheat by 5.3 per cent, cereals by 7 per cent and pulses by 49 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, it noted. “The total stock of food grains in India is 564.54 lakh metric tonnes according to the latest information given by Food Corporation of India, on December 1, 2019. The average stock should be 214 lakh tonnes in the month of January according to the same. We demand that the government should release this additional buffer stock to the public distribution system to feed the starving population in India,” the union said.

In a similar pattern, the social security schemes are also becoming more symbolic as the government is forcefully decreasing the number of beneficiaries due to lack of budget for these schemes, the union said. “For example, in this budget also the allocations for National Social Assistance Programmes which include Indira Gandhi National Old age Pension Scheme, National Family Benefit Scheme, Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme, Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme and Annapurna Yojna has gone down from Rs 9,200 crore to Rs 9,196.92 crore,” it noted. The working committee has resolved to mobilize the rural masses on the issues of livelihood, land, housing sites, minimum wages and for the implementation of social welfare schemes.

The union has also decided to take up the issues of land on priority and said that they would launch struggles demanding land to the landless, housing sites and for protection of forest land. It said that the concentration of land, assets, agricultural and non-agricultural incomes have only intensified in India due to the policies of the successive Central governments. It said that the governments are reversing the land reforms with the implementation of the neoliberal economic policies. Greater concentration and centralization of land as well as resources is a result of the implementation of such policies and the central government is also forcing the states to implement them by linking various central schemes with land issues.

The union has resolved to conduct a door-to-door campaign against the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) up to March 23, Martyrdom Day. They would distribute pamphlets appealing to the people not to answer to the National Population Register (NPR) questions.

In a move to reach out to the dalits who are facing increasing attacks under the Modi regime, the union has planned to visit 50,000 dalit bastis in the coming times and launch concrete issues-based struggles. The condition of dalits is deteriorating and the anti-poor economic policies of the central government are further worsening their life, the union said.

The working committee decided to organise protests at district and state centers demanding the government to intervene on the issue of judgment of the Supreme Court regarding reservations for SC/ST/OBCs in government jobs and promotions. Recently, the two-member bench of the Supreme Court has given a judgment on reservations saying that there is no fundamental right to claim reservation in government job or promotion. In this judgment, the Supreme Court has reversed the Uttarakhand High Court order which directed the state government to provide reservations. The present judgment is against the rights of dalits, tribals and OBCs, as reservations are constitutional provisions and thereby mandatory, said the AIAWU. “The central government has completely failed to handle the issue. This is the continuation of the anti-reservation approach of the central government which is directed by the ideology of the Sangh family. All these controversies could have been avoided if the government implemented the long pending demand to shift reservation to the Ninth Schedule of the constitution. We demand it should be done immediately and all possible legal measures be taken to correct the interpretation of the court,” it stressed.