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Hello,
MGNREGA provides a critical social security net by guaranteeing a minimum of 100 days of employment to adults in every rural household. The scheme protects the rural poor from income shocks and seasonal variations in the availability of work. However, in West Bengal, the Centre suspended the scheme in December 2021 and refused to transfer funds, alleging that the state had issued “2.5 million fake job cards”, which led to “siphoning of crores of rupees”.
Article 14 reports that this clampdown by the Centre has impacted those who depend on the scheme hard. Before the censure by the Centre, West Bengal was among the leading states in MGNREGA-led employment, with 11.8 million workers paid and more than 6.78 lakh households finding employment. Now, the lack of wages for two years has resulted not only in large-scale migration but also in incidents of violence between communities due to growing economic distress.
The Forest Rights Act of 2006 was enacted to enable the state to divest its power over forests to the indigenous people. However, few communities have been able to leverage the full power that the Act bestows them. But, in eastern Maharashtra, in Chandrapur district, a Gond village—Pachgaon—has bucked the trend.
In 2012, the village used the provisions of the Act to claim rights over 1,006 hectares of forest land that had been with the forest department for a hundred years. The villagers have since cultivated, stocked and sold bamboo, previously the sole privilege of the forest department, and invested their annual revenues of tens of lakhs in the development of the village. Significantly, their success has stemmed migration to cities, which was once the norm, and has brought together the villagers as a community now vested in itself. The Migration Story chronicles this remarkable transformation.
In 2023, Kerala attempted to introduce ‘seaplanes’ to boost tourism by connecting key tourist centres of the state, but was stymied by strong opposition from the fisher community, the unions, and environmentalists. Now, Kerala is making a second attempt—with a seaplane taking off last week from Kochi and landing at Idukki’s Mattupatty Dam in less than an hour, which takes about four hours by road.
This relaunch, too, has raised hackles, like in 2023, with those opposing the project arguing that the seaplane service endangers the fragile ecosystems of the coasts, impacting the livelihoods of the fishing community. Even as the government plans to extend these services to other tourist centres, there is particular concern about the potential for human-animal conflict in the forest areas where the seaplanes are scheduled to operate. Keraleeyam Masika analyses the issues.
And, as the national capital, Delhi, registers record pollution levels and makes national news, for the people of Jharia block in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district, this is an everyday reality. With coal mining, the mainstay of the economy and by far the largest employer, the residents also suffer the flipside—breathing the ever-present coal ash particles, as poisonous dust clouds envelop the village by day and smouldering fires are visible at night. Janchowk travels to Bastakala village in the area to find that there are no easy solutions, and the ongoing assembly elections do not echo any of their issues.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
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