INDIA: A corrupt supervisor misappropriated the wages of 16 illiterate workers depriving them of their food security 

Dear Friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) received information from SPREAD, a human rights organization based in Orissa, that the wages of 16 illiterate workers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) were misappropriated by the supervisor in charge of the project. The villagers are landless and without a regular source of income and NREGS is one of the government programmes to guarantee the food security of the poor in rural areas. The villagers made a complaint to the Block Development Officer and the district Collector however, the alleged perpetrator has not been brought to justice. 

CASE DETAILS:

On February 28, 2010, sixteen labourers of Kharsapada village, Lamtaput block of Koraput District of Orissa discovered that a supervisor of the Soil Conservation Department had misappropriated their wages paid under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGAS), to the tune of INR 49,490 (USD 1000).

During the months of September and December 2009, the Soil Conservation Department launched a NREGS project in the Koraput district planting cashew trees over 80 acres of land. Thirty villagers from Kharsapada village joined the project for a period of 11 to 43 days from September to October in 2009. All these villagers are landless without a regular source of income and find it difficult to manage their daily food.

At the end of the project, the Supervisor in charge of its implementation, Mr. Debiprasad Jena, asked for the workers’ post office passbooks in which the workers are expected to receive their wages, threatening them that they would not be given rights to the cashew land if they did not hand him their passbooks, Mr. Jena managed to convince 16 workers to accede to his demand. He also managed, while having them sign the muster roll, to take their thumb impression on withdrawal forms of the Machkund post office where the workers have their accounts. Because they are illiterate, the 16 workers did not realize that by doing so they were giving the Supervisor open access to their bank accounts.

Since they did not receive their wages in due time, the labourers went to the Machkund Soil Conservation Office several times to ask for the payment of their wages and for the return of their passbooks, but Mr. Jena was either absent from the office or argued that the bill had not been prepared yet.

On February 28, 2010, after mounting pressure from the workers, the supervisor eventually accepted to return the passbooks but reasserted that the bill was still not ready and that they would have to wait for their wages.

Upon return of the passbooks, some villagers showed them to Mr. Harihara Hantal, a literate villager of Mantriput village who noticed that the wages had been deposited in their accounts on December 19, 2009 and were withdrawn the same day. Each worker was robbed of an amount of money ranging from INR 980 (USD 21) to INR 3,870 (USD 84)

The villagers have been trying to confront Mr. Jena but have failed to locate him so far. Some of them have lodged a complaint to the Lampatut Block Development Officer (BDO). Others have gone directly to the District Collector of Koraput who gave assurance that steps will be taken to investigate those serious allegations and punish the culprit. However, the alleged perpetrator Mr. Jena has yet neither been investigated nor arrested.

The robbed workers in this case are landless tribal villagers, which make them part of one of the communities the most vulnerable to poverty and hunger in India. Depriving them of their wages is thus very likely to deprive them from a very valuable source of income and hamper their food security.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), passed in 2005, guarantees 100 days of employment for the poor household, per year, to any adult willing to do casual labour at minimal wage. This program aims at ensuring the food security of the poor in rural areas by providing them with employment. It guarantees the right to protection against unemployment entrenched in the article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the right to work as stated in the article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Nevertheless, during the last few years, the AHRC has regularly documented cases which clearly illustrate how recurrent flaws in the system have prevented it from achieving this goal and effectively protecting the villagers from poverty and unemployment.

Those malfunctioning do not only occur in the Orissa state for instance in two villages of Madhya Pradesh, the head of the village kept the villagers’ job cards, refusing to distribute the wages. Those practices breach the villagers’ right to work and often force them to migrate to other states (See AHRC-HAC-003-2010). For other recent cases of mismanagement of the NREGA, please refer to: AHRC-UAC-129-2009 and AHRC-HAC-004-2010.

The accountability of projects launched under the NREGA is further damaged by the lack of clarity in the provision of the law. Indeed, while Section 25 of NREGA provides for penalties against anyone who “contravenes the provisions” of the Act, it does not specify the amount of penalty which should be imposed, who has the authority to order them and under which circumstances someone should be fined.

This often leaves villagers without any legal remedies to abuses. In Orissa, where 37% of the adults are still illiterate and thus vulnerable to abuse from corrupted government officials, access to legal institutions to hold those in charge of implementing public programs accountable for their abuses is even more difficult. They are also often unaware of the existing redressal procedures and of the possibility to hold a social audit for each project implemented under the NREGA. Even a social audit is often held without villagers’ participation.

A interim field report published by the right to food campaign in 2007 found that ‘NREGA in Orissa appears to be particularly vulnerable to corruption’ especially because the public servants attached to village council system are in control of almost all the matters related to the implementation of the scheme which can easily lead to abuses and misappropriation. The lack of grievance redressal procedures only adds to it and increases the system vulnerability to corruption. Indeed, the grievance redressal authorities are often the same as the implementing authorities, which leaves the workers with very few solutions if the scheme is inappropriately implemented.

The report also interestingly points out that relying on the banking system to prevent the misappropriation of wage funds also includes a lot of risks due to the lack of preparedness of the banking system. This case exposes that the bank did not refuse to withdraw money from a bank account in the absence of the owner. The workers’ lack of familiarity with somehow complexes banking procedures. Even though this report was released in 2007, these loopholes continue to hamper the functioning of the NREGA.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please join us in expressing your concern regarding the misuse of public programmes aiming at guaranteeing the right to work and the right to food of the poorest in India.

The AHRC has also written a separate letter calling for intervention to the Chief Justice of India and the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER