Crime
Migration Mess: No jobs in hand amid food crisis, Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa witnesses tribal exodus
Adivasis from the region move to other states for employment, only to find themselves worked to the bone, living in grim conditions and often cheated of their wages or held hostage by employers.
“I have a wife and five daughters, but there’s no work in the village. Even if you find some, the panchayat takes months to pay us,” said 35-year-old Poonamchand Sitaram Gautam, a resident of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh, who recently returned from Koratala in Telangana, where he was employed as a construction worker.
“Under the Public Distribution System, we receive just 5 kg of foodgrains for each member of the family every month. But these rations barely last a fortnight,” he added, alluding to the food crisis in his tribal-dominated village of Dabhia in the state’s Khalwa region.
Based on a field study conducted in 12 states by Ekta Parishad, Madhya Pradesh is purported to have the highest inter-state migration rate — standing at 32.39 per cent, Khandwa being one of the districts leading. According to estimates by a local body, between 5,000 and 10,000 tribals migrate out of Khalwa every year to work as labourers in other states.
Khalwa is spread over 70 to 100 km from the district headquarters. While many villages of this block are part of the Khandwa-Betul State Highway, most of Khalwa falls under the jurisdiction of the forest department, with 90 per cent of the population living in remote areas. In fact, when 101Reporters visited Dabhia, we found that at least two members from each house had migrated to other states for work.
Last year, Gautam’s 16-year-old daughter Garima found work as a labourer to build drains under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). After working eight hours a day for five weeks, Garima was paid only two weeks’ worth of wages. When her mother Rajni Bai questioned the panchayat, she was told that the money had been transferred to her account, but they have yet to receive it.
Jamna Kallu Chauhan, too, shared her woes. “In the last two weeks, I carried out digging work for the panchayat eight hours a day. But I was paid only for one week. I approached the panchayat office in Semliya repeatedly, but no one cooperated with me,” the 60-year-old said.
The sarpanch of Semliya panchayat Pyari Bai Ramesh Takher, however, denied any outstanding payments.
“No labourer’s wages are outstanding with the panchayat,” she claimed. “The money has been transferred into their accounts. The villagers often withdraw money and blame us later.”
No logic to the numbers
Kishore Kumar Uike, the CEO of Janpad panchayat, insisted that the district is continually opening up job opportunities for the area’s local residents.
“Janpad panchayat has created employment for 17,000 labourers in the development block,” he said. “I don’t understand why people are migrating for work. Even today, if anyone approaches us for work through the panchayat or district, we will provide them with work.”
According to the MGNREGA website, which currently seems inaccessible, 3,821 days of wages were generated in Khalwa from May 2020 to May 2021, benefiting 644 workers. The work given to labourers included pond construction, canal deepening and dam checks. The website has had no updates since then.
A hunger-induced distress migration
According to Prakash Michael, treasurer of the Spandan Samajseva Samiti, an organisation working to provide nutrition and employment to these tribals, the primary cause for migration is the food crisis in the region, which has increased in the last couple of decades.
“Adivasis have ditched growing traditional crops and turned to cash crops such as soybean. Bajra and other millets such as koda and kutki, once the backbone of their nutrition, are no longer visible in the fields. They use most of the money they earn by selling produce to repay loans. They are left with very little foodgrains, so this is basically hunger-induced distress migration,” Michael told 101Reporters.
This explanation holds true for 60-year-old Jamna, who now lives alone in her hut. Her husband, Kallu Chauhan, had “taken up a contractual job of harvesting moong in Nahali, Harda district, despite being terribly ill. The family’s financial crisis had pushed him to move, and within three days, we lost him to the illness.”
One lakh labourers migrate from Nimar
While the administration has no official figures to share, Spandan Samajseva Samiti, which collects data for land surveys, estimates that around 1 lakh people from Khandwa, Khargone, Barwani and Burhanpur of Nimar district migrate to Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh each year.
However, this large workforce is unorganised and unprotected. These labourers are neither insured by their employers, nor are they provided safety equipment for use while working. This often leads to their death, and since there are no official records of migrant labourers, employers shirk their responsibilities by deeming them mere accidents.
Under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, the employer must provide migrant workers with food, lodging, healthcare and social activities. Labour officials must be kept in the loop to ensure that workers’ rights are not violated. Also, the figures of migrant workers must be displayed on the Migrant Labourer Portal, though no data appears to track this information.
District Labour Officer S.S. Alawa explained that the act “can be invoked only if the contractors or residents officially inform the department about their migration, which the tribals here fail to do. Hence, they cannot exercise any rights under this law”.
Wily contractors, callous employers
Furthermore, contractors here deploy locals to connect them with labourers. These people take advantage of their knowledge of the Korku dialect and lure the tribals by promising large sums of money as wages. They are often paid an advance so they believe it’s a good deal and manage to convince their friends and neighbours, too.
On the appointed day, the contractor’s vehicle arrives at the village to transport the migrants. The journey usually takes place at night, so the workers don’t recognise where they are being taken. They often don’t find out for days and weeks which village, district or state they are working in. The contractor shares his mobile number to placate the families, but the phone is often turned off once they set out with the migrant labourers.
Daji Lofa, a 30-year-old who returned from harvesting sugarcane in Maharashtra, recalls a contractor who had come to the village before Diwali last year and promised everyone cane-cutting work for three months. He had also promised them huge amounts of money, which would enable them to stay home without working for the rest of the year. He had paid an advance of Rs 7,000 to one of the workers. A week after Diwali, the contractor arrived at 11 pm with two mini Eichers and took 40 people with him. But they were refused pay after putting in hours of hard labour.
Such are the kinds of experiences that the tribals of Khandwa attempt to flee.
Babu Mangal, one of the workers from Khalwa held hostage in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, last year, said they were treated worse than animals. He, along with his wife, had to continue harvesting sugarcane despite being terribly ill.
“We didn’t get any treatment when we were ill. We had to arrange for our own food and sleep in the open fields or inside warehouses,” the 50-year-old told 101Reporters.
Similarly, when Sunita Kajle from Langoti village went to Maharashtra to work, she found out she was pregnant. But she was still forced to continue working long hours without relief or proper nutrition until the sixth month of her pregnancy. As a result, she gave birth to a malnourished daughter after returning.
In some cases, the tribals bear the consequences of this survival act — the migration — longer than they could have anticipated, at times for life.
Take Munni Bai, for instance. She injured herself while working at a brick kiln and continues to live with it. She had dropped bricks on her feet, which initially caused swelling and later became worse. Munni can no longer work due to her injured leg and has received no compensation from neither the contractor nor the government.
Socio-economic factors
Khandwa district has a population of 13,10,061, of which 80.20 per cent live in villages. The literacy rate of Khalwa is only 43.10 per cent (51 per cent among males and 34 per cent among females). Despite this, the proportion of labour in Khalwa is 17.38 per cent, of which 9.66 per cent is male and 7.72 per cent female. Agriculture is the primary source of income, but the people here barely own any land, 2 acres per family on an average.
The percentage of total agricultural farmers in the tehsil is 14.08 per cent in Khalwa, of which 9.88 per cent are male and 4.20 per cent are female. There’s no focus on employment-oriented education, and the entire sector is dependent on resources from agriculture and forests.
In 2009-2010, the state government had created natural resource-related jobs in Awliya under the Small Forest Produce Association, for the manufacture of incense sticks, perfumes, bamboo furniture and household items. Initially, over a 100 people were employed under this scheme, but they could not grow beyond making incense sticks, which wasn’t financially viable and hence, discontinued.
Crime
Mumbai: AIU Officers Nab Transit Passenger & Airport Staff With 24 KT Of Gold Dust Worth ₹2.7 Crore
Mumbai: Based on profiling, AIU officers maintained discreet surveillance on a transit passenger who had arrived from Dubai to Mumbai and was scheduled to depart for Male.
About The Operation
During this operation, officers observed the transit passenger handing over an item to a private airport staff, immediately both the staff member and the transit passenger were intercepted by the officers. A personal search of the private airport staff revealed the concealment of 24 KT gold dust in wax form (12 pieces), with a gross weight of 3.976 kg and provisional net weight of 3.800 kg, and provisionally valued at ₹2.714 Crore.
The gold dust was hidden inside transparent self-sealing pouches and placed in the pockets of the pants worn by the private airport staff. During questioning, the private airport staff admitted that the gold had been handed over by the same transit passenger who had been under AIU surveillance. Both individuals were arrested under the Customs Act of 1962.
Crime
Mira-Bhayandar: Police Busts Illicit Liquor Brewing Den In Nallasopara
Mira Bhayandar: Further tightening their screws against illicit liquor mafia ahead of the assembly elections scheduled to be held on 20, November, the Mira Road-based central crime branch unit attached to the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai (MBVV) police busted yet another massive illicit liquor brewing unit which was operating from a hillock in a dense jungle area in Nallasopara on Thursday.
Acting on a tip-off, a team led by assistant police inspector- Dattatray Sarak marched 2-kilometre-deep inside the jungle area located in the Dhaniv Baug area of Nallasopara (east) at around 8 am.
The team seized multiple barrels of hooch along with ingredients including 2,800 litres of fermented jaggery wash, 140 litres of liquor, chemicals and other manufacturing equipment collectively worth more than Rs. 1.42 lakh.
However, the den operator identified as- Prabhakar Bhoye and his employees managed to evade the police dragnet. The entire material and equipment were destroyed on the spot.
An offence under the relevant sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition Act-1949 for construction/works of any distillery or brewery and manufacturing intoxicants has been registered in this context at the Pelhar police station.
The consumption of illicit liquor which is unscientifically manufactured by using toxic chemicals like methanol and rectified spirit can cause deaths and other serious ailments including loss of eyesight. Further investigations were underway.
Crime
Wildlife Smuggling Racket Busted: Rare Snakes, Reptiles, Caged Orangutan Rescued From Dombivli House
Thane: In a significant operation exposing a wildlife smuggling racket, the Forest Officials rescued rare species of animals from a highrise in Dombivli. The officials raided an apartment in Palava City, Dombivli and found exotic animals including lizard, turtles, rare species snakes and other reptiles stored in the flat. Horrifying enough, the team found a monkey caged in the washroom of the apartment.
It was later confirmed that the rescued animals included Ignuana (lizard), an Orangutan and python. The operation was conducted by the Forest Range Officers from Thane and Kalyan along with a team from Manpada Police Station after a tip.
The officials did not find any accused present in the apartment at the time of the raid. A case under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 has been registered and a search for the accused is underway. Meanwhile, the seized species are handed over to a local NGO on a temporary basis for observation.
The video of the forest officials raid surfaced on the internet shows a boy opening the door of the well-kept apartment. After entering the flat, the officials gradually come across wildlife species stores in small cage, plastic boxes piled up in the passage and shocking enough an Orangutan in washroom at the end of the apartment.
As per the statement issued by the police, the teams raided the 8th floor apartment in B wing of Savarna Building in Palava City, Dombivli. In the action, the exotic animals seized as prima facie identified as python, ignuana (lizard), turtle, snake etc. The seized wildlife species, on temporary basis, are handed over to Birsa Munda- a local NGO. The pachanama, documentation and search for the accused is underway, it added.
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