Case1-March-2014

Migration issues among sugarcane cutters in Beed district
Rajan P

Beed District of Maharashtra has vast areas under sugarcane cultivation and the migrants who work as sugarcane cutters in those fields face many issues. This district along with Tirupur in Tamilnadu is taken for piloting the new theme - ‘Migration and Development’. To understand the area, community and the developmental issues of sugar cane cutters, a visit to Beed region was made between 26-29.06.2012. Field visit to three villages, focussed group discussion, interaction with middlemen (Labour Contractor), NGOs and local field team of DHAN were made to understand the context and the issues of the migrants.

About Beed District

The Maharashtra state is geographically divided into four regions – Konkan, Western Maharashtra, Vidharbha and Marathwada. Beed district comes under Marathwada region of Maharashtra. Even today 75 percent of the people are living in villages and 67 percent of them are below poverty line. This region lies in a rain shadow and consequently has scanty and unpredictable rainfall. People face moderate drought for every 3-4 years and severe drought once in every 10 years. Livelihood systems are fractured and over 5-6 lakhs people migrate annually to work in the sugarcane cutting industry.

The Beed district in Marathwada is the most droughtprone even in this dry region. It is one of the India’s backward districts. Irrigation facilities are poor and they are not likely to improve in the near future. Crops like sorghum and cotton, which can be cultivated with less water, are grown here. The region is ridden with poverty and illiteracy. Perennial drought has resulted in unemployment, shortage of food and water, resulting into endemic poverty. People in Beed are caught in a vicious cycle of debt-poverty-illiteracy.This vicious circle adversely affects all social indicators-health, infant mortality, education and violence against women.

On the other hand the Western Maharashtra flourishes with abundant irrigation facilities, which favours sugarcane cultivation making it as a sugar belt of Maharashtra. Though it constitutes only 3 percent of area under cultivation in the state 60 percent of the state’s irrigation whereas the irrigation cover is as low as 6 percent in Marathwada region.

Political patronage and vote bank politics rule the sugarcane belt. The Western Maharashtra region which enjoys patronage of politicians witnessed rapid growth in irrigational facilities, access to loans and other basic infrastructure whereas Vidharbha and Marathwada are regions are comparatively less developed. This has led to regional disparity in agricultural development affecting living standards of people. Increased seasonal migration is forced because of such defective policies of the government and is most closely associated with the capitalist development of rural agricultural production in this area.

Migrant workers and their status

Beed region is known for its sugarcane cutting workers. Since 1972, they are migrating for sugar cane cutting to Western Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka where more number of sugarcane factories are located. In Western Maharashtra alone there are 192 factories. These migrant workers who are skilled at cutting sugarcane get exploited by labour contractors and rich farmers; they work in atrocious conditions for meagre compensation. These workers are going for sugarcane cutting for eight months from Oct to May.

The hamlets in the region are mostly caste based with poor infrastructure facilities such as drinking water, school, healthcare, road and transport, banks etc. The workers in the villages have very less livelihood options; so they depend mostly on agriculture. The quality of drinking water is poor. Less than 40 percent of the houses have bathrooms and only three percent houses have latrines.

High dropout rate among school children prevail here. Especially girls dropout is more than the boys. Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra Govt to open schools in rural areas to provide free primary education to the children of migrant labourers who work in sugarcane fields. There are only 30 schools for migrant children in the state’s 198 sugar factories.

The highly organized sugar industry keeps the labourers unorganized. No labour laws are implemented to protect their rights although minimum wages act, contract labour act, money lending act and workmen’s compensation act are applicable. Most of the government programmes are not reaching the community. The government agencies do not have adequate information about the migration and its issues.

Findings of the visit

1. The mere sight of the village, housing and other infrastructures such as roads and transport itself reveal the severity of the poverty. The houses were covered by tin sheets on all the four sides and they are barely six feet height. There is no bathroom or toilet facility in the houses. Even the available houses are temporary structures made with locally available materials like coconut leaves.
2. Of the three villages visited two villages had people from same community and one was a multicaste village. Common village events are held rarely for which household tax is collected. There is no common fund for the village to meet any emergency expenditure. Caste differentiation is visible with socially depressed community living separately. There is no evidences of intercaste marriages.
3. Marriage expenses are high compared to their living standards ranging from one lakh to three lakhs which is given as dowry to the bridegroom. Investment in jewel is less and most of the women are seen without gold jewels. Most of the expenditure is on food and arrangements for marriage.
4. Drinking water is obtained from common hand pumps and in some cases from wells. The same water is used for domestic purpose. In some villages efforts were taken to collect tax from houses to install hand pumps
5. Agriculture is predominantly rainfed and only a few rich farmers have dug out borewells or wells for irrigation. There are no traditional water bodies such as tanks or farm ponds in the villages to harvest rain water. The agricultural season is from June to September during which rainfed crops like cotton and sorghum are grown. There is no other livelihood option than farming. There is no milch animal in the villages visited. Other livestock rearing is also rare
6. People are financially excluded from the mainstream financial institutions. The money lender or the labour contractor exploit this situation and charge exorbitant rate of interest as high as 60 percent. There is also no indigenous saving system.
7. Both men and women go as labourer for cutting sugarcane. An advance of र 70,000/- is given for a couple. Depending on the number of working persons in a family the advance amount gets increased. At times if they are not performing their task as expected, their advance amount will be reduced. The advance is received in cash and there is no formal agreement between the labour contractor and the middle men.
8. The labourers are receiving the amount during the agricultural season; they are using this amount for agriculture, marriage, repayment to money lenders, family events or for alcohol consumption. They are utilising the considerable amount unproductively. Some families are spending lavishly.
9. The labourers have to cut 350 tons of sugarcane during the season (October to May). Everyday a couple has to cut two tons. So every couple has to engage themselves in the sugarcane cutting for 175 days to reach 350 tons. If the labourers are cutting lesser tons then the middle men will reduce the amount accordingly. The next year advance will be paid after deducting the previous year shortfall.
10. The factories are providing the daily sheet/ information about their team performance; the copy will be given to the middle men, from this he will calculate the harvest of tons and its labour.
11. The factories are providing र 190/ton for cutting and loading. The market rate for cutting the cane is र 350 to र 400. They are paid 40 to 50 percent less than the market rate. At the same time, each couple has to spend 12 to 15 hours for cutting and loading. That means, they are working additionally ½ a shift for which there is no payment or the exploitation will be more than 60-65 percent.
12. The middle men are getting र 35 - र 50 per ton as a commission from the factory. For one couple, he is getting commission of min of 1 lakhs to 1.5 lakhs in a season. The factory and the middle men (labour contractor) are making formal agreement for engaging the labourers, for that they are getting the payments in three instalments from the factory. These middle men have associations at block level and district level to deal with factory.
13. Nine couples are considered as one team for easy management and for loading. They have to stay back in the field till loading gets completed, which depends on the arrival of the vehicle. So these couples have to live in the cane field itself with their children and other belongings. There is no working hours; no decent living conditions; they just live in temporary shelters in the sugarcane fields. Their living conditions are mostly vulnerable to snake bites, fire etc. During the working time also they encounter accidents.
14. Because of their working conditions and non availability of school facilities their children are not getting education. Also, there is no medical facility for them especially for women and children.
15. Even though there are many government schemes for sugarcane cutters to provide health, educational facilities, those schemes are beyond their reach. More over there is no awareness about the schemes and programmes of the government.

Way forward:

Organising the unorganised, facilitating mainstream linkage, social security, education, health, entitlements and awareness on their rights are the priority areas to work with these migrant population.

Building opportunities to promote institutions and intervention in the places of origin and destination of migrants , available schemes and programmes with government/mainstream institutions, creating legitimate space for the federation and region in establishing linkages with factory and sugarcane cutters in order to improve their wages, awareness on their rights, ensuring entitlements and services are the areas to be explored futher.