Kolkata: October has always been a difficult month for West Bengal’s poor who work and eat off the land. Those with small land parcels must wait until the harvest is ready, some time early the following year, to bring home essentials and profits, while the landless must wait for the harvest to find work and wages. 

“During this time we would do maati kata kaj (earth-works) and earn some money,” said Arpana Soren in the district of Malda, nearly 350 km north of Kolkata. 

Wages from this non-agricultural labour would help pay outstanding debts and perhaps allow some tiny treats for children of labourers during the Durga Puja festivities. Now, she said, “we are sitting at home idle while our husbands are away in unknown distant lands trying to make some money”.

Arpana Soren, 35, and her husband both depended on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Act for livelihood during the off-season for farm labour. With MGNREGA work in the state of West Bengal having come to a complete halt for two years now, her husband and 16-year-old son have both left to look for work in Andhra Pradesh. 

Similar tales of desperate families across the rural hinterland of West Bengal emerge from those undertaking long journeys to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Karnataka in search of work as construction labourers or factory workers. Barring those who are ailing, the elderly, and others unable to travel for other reasons, the out-migration of labourers who normally found work at MGNREGA sites has become a common phenomenon, with even women in many households joining the search for work hundreds of kilometres from home.

Work under MGNREGA, a law that guarantees citizens a minimum of 100 days’ work every year upon demanding it, was suspended in West Bengal in December 2021, amid a dispute between the Union government and the Trinamool Congress-run state government.

The crux of the dispute is the central government’s December 2021 move to halt all NREGA funding for West Bengal, on grounds that the state had allegedly issued nearly 2.5 million fake job cards that enabled siphoning of crores of rupees. This led to a complete freeze on NREGA projects and leaving workers without their hard-earned wages for nearly three years. 

In 2020-21, before the current imbroglio, West Bengal was among the leading states on providing employment through the MGNREGA, with 11.8 million workers paid wages, 7.9 million households benefited and as many as 678,633 households completing a full 100 days of wage employment

Nikhil Dey, founder of civil society group Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) which works with workers and peasants in multiple states, said the situation of MGNREGA workers in West Bengal set a terrible precedent. 

“It is not a violation of federalism simply, it is a violation of any kind of law that the centre and the state put together implement,” said Dey. “It is a violation of the duties of the centre to the citizens.” 

Dey said the Union government had violated its own law and the right to life and livelihood. 

“It shows that the government only protects its own,” he said, pointing out that while government staffers, engineers, etc who would have been involved in the alleged corruption had not been terminated, only workers have had to face the brunt of the government’s move. 

Thousands Unpaid

While section 27 of the MNREGA pertains to action by the Union against improper utilisation of funds and expressly permits or enables stoppage of funds, the section includes a clause on undertaking remedial measures “within a reasonable period of time” to resume implementation.

The MGNREGA is a demand-driven law and a legal guarantee of 100 days of paid employment annually to the rural poor. Research on various aspects of the MGNREGA have concluded (see here, here and here) that the scheme helps insure the rural poor from income shocks and seasonal variations in availability of work.

The last fund transfer order (FTO) from the centre to West Bengal was released on 26 December 2021; no payment order was released after that. 

Consequently, NREGA workers have not been paid wages for over two years. 

The centre has withheld the release of over Rs 7,500 crore in MGNREGA funds to the state, of which, wages amounting to Rs 2,762 crore have not been paid to 3.4 crore registered workers from West Bengal for work already completed by them. 

While MGNREGA work was not offered in financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24, individual works such as under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Grameen (PMAY-G) were undertaken by workers—this is permitted labour work for construction of an individual’s home under the PMAY.  Wages for these individual works are also pending. 

In Lakhanpur village of Purulia district’s Hura block, in the westernmost part of the state, Minu Bauri last worked at an MGNREGA site in 2022. Since then, the 35-year-old has visited the panchayat office and block office, about 10 km from her home, innumerable times to request that her wages be paid, a total of approximately Rs 3,500, for 15 days of work. 

All six adults in her family worked at MGNREGA sites.  

Her brother-in-law and his wife were among the few in their village to have been paid their pending wages—the money came before the state assembly elections in February 2024. 

The case of the West Bengal state government clearing MGNREGA arrears in some pockets before the general elections of 2024 also provoked anger in other regions, with workers feeling that strongholds of the ruling party received the maximum amounts. 

In Purulia’s Jhalda block, workers said barely anyone had received pending wages, while in Purulia 2 and Hura blocks, payments were received but not at the rate of Rs  203 per day, which is the state’s MGNREGA rate.  The state government said it would pay the full wages but many workers reported not receiving their arrears. 

There was also no mention of the delay compensation due to the workers.  paid.  

According to the law, when payment of wages is not done within 15 days from the date of closure of the muster roll, the wage seeker, as per para 29 of Schedule II of the MGNREG Act, is entitled to payment of compensation at the rate of 0.05% of the unpaid wages per day of delay beyond the sixteenth day. 

On 7 October, the Calcutta high court also asked the state to respond regarding payment of  unemployment allowance to workers. 

“I would leave my children and go to work in the sun but I did not get anything,” a distraught Minu Bauri told Article 14. “It does not matter any more—as long as we get fresh work, I am willing to do it.”

Steeped in credit, Minu Bauri said the family’s meals are in peril as the local grocery store owner has been impatient to get paid. Bauri has been doing odd jobs in others’ houses whenever such work is available.

In order to understand the current status of wage payment initiated by the Trinamool Congress-run state government, Article 14 contacted the secretary in the Panchayat & rural development department and other officials by email, but received no response.

Journeys To Patna, Hyderabad

Minu Bauri’s neighbour Gulabi Bauri had a strikingly similar story.  

Earlier in 2024, her 22-year-old son left for Patna, hoping to find work there as there was nothing available in the village. Among the 1,200 households in the village, most women like Bauri and Gulabi are landless labourers working in fields during the agricultural season for Rs 200 a day.

The MGNREGA was their solitary lifeline for the remainder of the year, nearly eight months. 

Gulabi’s husband was too old to do hard labour, while Bauri’s husband refused to do odd jobs. In any case, she did not want him to travel a long distance in search of work. 

Men from Lakhanpur village did not traditionally migrate for labour, but over the past two years, they have ventured as far as Chennai and Hyderabad, facing a series of issues there being new to the specific challenges that migrant workers face. 

They recounted struggling to contest non-payment of their full wages by  contractors, and described the poor quality of accommodation for migrant labourers. Often, couples who migrate together found they had to live separately with other migrants of their own gender, they said.

Residents told Article 14 that they had barely begun to recover from the Covid-19 lockdowns and consequent loss of work and wages, and that shock had been quickly followed by the suspension of MGNREGA, prompting large-scale migration,  particularly from Purulia, Paschim Medinipur and Howrah in south Bengal. North Bengal has a distinct pattern of agriculture and labour migration to the tea gardens. 

For women in villages like Lakhanpur, the emptying out of able-bodied males from households presented new challenges of daily living that they had never experienced before, rendering them vulnerable and insecure.

Parbati Kisku and Mamuni Murmu, Adivasi women of Bashai village in Purba Bardhaman district, told Article 14 that their main fear since their husbands left to find work as agricultural labourers in the north Indian states has been with regard to financial emergencies. Especially in cases of health emergencies, they said, it was the men who knew who to approach to arrange for money. In the absence of the men, moneylenders were taking advantage of the situation, they said. 

In Sabraping village of Paschim Medinipur district, Kori Hasda and his wife, both in their sixties, were left to care for their three grandchildren while both their sons, along with their wives, migrated to Hyderabad and Bengaluru to work as labourers at  construction sites. 

“‘We have never gone out to work, neither have our children, let alone the women,” said Hasda, “but when no work was available here for more than a year, we were forced to take this decision.”

The Hasdas’ sons and daughters-in-law return for a few days every five to six months, full of anguish about the difficulties they face as outsiders in a distant state. With earnings averaging Rs 6,000 per month, the surplus to bring home after covering living expenses and travel is barely Rs 1,000 per month.

Hasda’s wife Parbati said it was the children who suffered the worst, adjusting to living  without their mother. “The story is the same for most households here,” she said. 

Collateral Damage: Education, Women’s Safety 

In the Kalna I block of Purba Bardhaman district, women’s self help groups (SHGs) were formerly very active, undertaking lending, monitoring of government schemes, etc.  

Many of these groups have become defunct over the past two years as women left the region, accompanying husbands to find work. 

Rani Tudu of the Sidho Kanhu SHG in Badhagachi village has had to care for two sons and an alcoholic husband. She usually worked on other people’s farms during the agricultural season and opted for work at MGNREGA sites, while her elder went to Chennai to work. With the stoppage of MGNREGA work, Rani Tudu’s younger son also gave up his studies and began to do odd jobs. 

Rani Tudu told Article 14 she did not want the younger boy to curtail his education. “I will go to Chennai since I can’t get a loan from our SHG as I could earlier,” she said. 

Veteran PBKMS activist Anuradha Talwar said safe transportation, safety and security of women in public and in places of work had become very important as more women moved out of their households and villages. “The percentage of women in our membership, mobilisation and in leadership has increased."

Litigation By Unions

In May 2023, the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS), a trade union based in the state, filed a writ petition in the Calcutta high court, through lawyers Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and Purbayan Chakraborty. In April 2024, the court passed an order directing the constitution of a four-member committee to conduct a verification, district-wise, of bogus claims made under MGNREGA and recoveries in these instances.   

On 26 September 2024, a division bench of chief justice T S Sivagnanam and justice Bivas Pattanayak  observed that the MGNREGA must continue to operate even while previous irregularities may continue to be investigated. The Bench said, “……the implementation of the scheme cannot be withheld for the reason that an enquiry is being done with regard to payment made to certain beneficiaries which is now being enquired into as regards to any irregularities or illegalities.”

The court also directed the advocate general of West Bengal to come back on 3  October 2024 with instructions from the state government about current provisions for employment under the scheme. 

Earlier, in November 2022, PBKMS had filed another public interest litigation that was disposed of in January 2023 with a direction to petitioners to submit all wage claims before the district nodal officer for MGNREGA, who is the district magistrate. 

This was a laborious exercise that consumed precious time, but was nonetheless done by the union to a large extent, said Talwar. She added that the process was disappointing, for workers had hoped for a quick remedy.   

However, the state said while the wage claims may be genuine, no payments could be made in the absence of funds from the centre, prompting the PBKMS to once again return to the HC.

Meanwhile, in March 2024 , the West Bengal state government announced a flagship programme—the  Karmashree scheme, which would provide a minimum of 50 days of work to any MGNREGA job-card holding household that applied for work under this scheme. 

This scheme is yet to pick up, and unions said the state government had not generated adequate awareness about it though applications have been made for work under this scheme, particularly in some blocks where unpaid MGNREGA workers are active. 

In Shantipur block, Nadia district, however, where more than 70 workers visited the block office to submit an application for work under the Karmashree scheme, officials reportedly informed them that no work was available. 

The PBKMS along with other independent organisations, including the NREGA Sangarsh Morcha, on behalf of millions of aggrieved workers, have made repeated representations in front of both state and central authorities. Efforts to meet union minister for rural development Shivraj Singh Chauhan have not been successful, they said. 

In March 2023, ahead of the West Bengal panchayat elections, the PBKMS filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), where a joint secretary in the union ministry of rural development and a secretary in the West Bengal government’s department of panchayats and rural development were made parties. The NHRC is yet to act on the complaint.

Denial Of Rights, Rising Food Insecurity 

In July 2022, a fact-finding team comprising members of civil society organisations, unions and other groups working on labour rights from across the country visited West Bengal. Prior to the visit, some team members met senior officials of the  union ministry of rural development.

Three teams visited three different districts—Purulia, South 24 Parganas and Nadia—and interacted extensively with MGNREGA workers and government officials.

Their findings pointed to a rise in migration, growing food insecurity among already vulnerable populations and a more inconspicuous impact—rising tensions and incidents of violence between different communities in villages due to sharpened economic distress, growing indebtedness, etc. 

There was ample ground-evidence that this livelihood denial was leading to denial of fundamental rights including the right to life and liberty. Between July and September 2024, in a show of solidarity, more than 4,700 MGNREGA workers from across India wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging the immediate resumption of work sites in West Bengal. 

Their postcards reiterated the workers’ demand that NREGA work in West Bengal be resumed immediately.  

The postcards carried a clear message, in multiple regional languages: “If the union government cannot release the NREGA budget for West Bengal, we, the workers of India, will raise the money ourselves.” 

(Mrinalini Paul is a PhD research scholar with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.) 

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