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Women construction workers fear job loss, suffer silently amidst growing pollution

Wed, 25 May 2022 09:12:43 +0000

Image Courtesy:indianwomenblog.org

As many as 94 percent of Delhi’s women construction workers never raised their voice or took any steps to prevent the negative impact of air pollution due to the fear of losing their jobs, revealed a survey conducted as part of the Help Delhi Breathe campaign.

A report from syndicated news said that Purpose India and Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) jointly executed a project involving 390 women construction workers from Bakkarwala, Gokulpuri and Sawda Ghevra. The survey was conducted from August 2021 to April 2022 to mobilise and enable women and help them understand the impact of air pollution. The goal was to interact with their women about their and their children’s health, build knowledge and so pressure local governments to support relevant policy and action.

Sample households were characterized by respondents majorly in the 36 years and above age-groups. Most of them consisted of illiterate or low educational-level people, predominantly from Scheduled Castes, followed by OBC. As many as 87 percent of them were married.

Around 85 percent of the women agreed that air pollution has a negative impact on human health and 75 percent said they feel sick or uncomfortable when the air quality is bad. More than three-fourth of respondents believed that working at construction sites is harmful for their health.

Further, 76 percent of the women were aware of air pollution. As for sources, 61 percent women learnt about the phenomenon from television, another 41 percent women learnt about it from their peer group and 45 percent women learnt from school-going children or family members.

“All participants were ignorant about the terms PM 2.5, PM 10 and air quality index,” it said.

“Ninety-four percent women never raised their voice or took any steps to prevent the negative impact of air pollution due to the fear of losing their jobs,” it claimed.

Some women said that preventing air pollution at construction sites is the sole responsibility of contractors, with workers having no liability for the same. Thus, only six percent women took preventive steps such as using masks or dupatta to cover their face, wearing full sleeved clothes, raising concerns at construction sites, sprinkling water on debris, among other things. A whopping 90 percent of the women said the government should improve public transport so that private transport is reduced.

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CITU condemns mass layoffs, criticizes government for inaction: IT Sector

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 11:04:25 +0000

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has, in the last week, expressed its concerns about mass retrenchments or lay-offs that have taken place in the IT sector in India. With big names like Cognizant, Infosys and Capgemini, carrying out layoffs of thousands of its employees, it has become a matter of worry.

An analytics website has explained the implications of these layoffs in IT companies as being indicative of an impending recession. In its article, Analytics India Mag explained, “As the technology segment of the Indian economy has a bigger dependence on global clients, IT-based outsourcing is the place most of the income lump originates from. On the off chance that the downturn hits the world, the Indian IT market may see more damage.” The article further said that the recent layoffs highlight fears of recession and the fact that the situation is worsening for large IT players operating in India.

Cognizant was criticized for laying off 7,000 employees despite of having reported profits in the recent quarter and the company justified the lay offs by giving reasons such as company’s focus moving away from content as well as cost optimization. The company is, however, set to hire fresh graduates or new hires for entry level jobs while laying off mid and senior level employees.

Layoffs at Infosys affected around 4,000 to 10,000 employees and it was justified by reasons like cost optimization and rising need for technology skills. Even Infosys has shifted its focus on hiring freshers.

Capgemini terminated 500 of its employees citing slow growth of projects and failure to ramp up some accounts.

CITU expressed its anguish on the Central and state governments’ indifference towards such retrenchment, which according to CITU are laying off employees under the garb of restructuring, growth plans and role rationalization and the intention of these companies is to maximise profits at the cost of employees. CITU declared its solidarity towards the terminated employees and urged the Central and well as respective State governments to take strict measures against such “illegal” retrenchments and also called upon its members and state committees to oppose the retrenchments and to stand in support of the employees.

Capgemini fires 500 employees in India over slow growth

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2018 – Year of Raging Joblessness

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 05:16:47 +0000

The tragedy of unemployment continues, complemented by a government that has no solution except to fiddle with data.

2018 – Year of Raging Joblessness

If there was one defining promise by Narendra Modi in the run-up to the 2014 General Elections, it was that he would give one crore jobs every year. Nearly five years down the line, this is what promises to sink him and his government at the Centre.

Far from fulfilling this promise, the Modi sarkar period has been marked by sustained and unmitigated joblessness, with youth – especially educated youth – suffering the most. The year that is just finishing is no exception: unemployment has steadily risen from over five per cent in January 2018 to a chilling 7.3 per cent on December 28, according to latest Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) survey data.

Remember: CMIE is defining unemployment in the strict sense of persons who are without jobs and actively looking for opportunities at the time of the survey. There are many more who have become disillusioned, frustrated and hopeless, deciding to not look for jobs at present. If you add these numbers then the share of unemployed will go up to as much as 9-10 per cent, going by previous estimates. For example, in August 2018, the strictly defined unemployment rate was 5.67 per cent, while the greater unemployment rate was 7.87, according to the Statistical Profile of Unemployment in India for May-August 2018, published by CMIE.

In August, graduate joblessness was as high as 14 per cent, while joblessness among 20-24 years old persons was a staggering 32 per cent, according to the same publication. So, at the year end, both would be even higher given that the aggregate unemployment rate itself has jumped up by over two percentage points.

Similarly, female unemployment was over 22 per cent in August, and would have risen further by the year end.

There are many other ways in which this is visible in the country, though not to the ruling BJP. For example, in the rural jobs guarantee scheme (MGNREGS), 7.2 crore persons applied for work till December 15 this year. With over three months still left in the financial year, the number of persons approaching for work seems to be headed for a record, the previous high being in 2016-17 when 8.5 crore had demanded work. Remarkably, the Modi government’s financial squeeze on schemes such as this resulted in 1.29 crore persons being turned back and refused work, although it is obligatory to provide work to all applicants. This itself is the highest number turned back since the scheme’s inception, and has added to the misery of jobless people. Again, three months are left, and the number is bound to swell further.

Although the Prime Minister continues to grandly declare that India is now the world’s largest maker of cell phones – implying thereby that a lot of people are getting jobs in this sector, this is nothing short of a joke. India is adding 1.2 crore people every year to its working age population and providing low-end jobs to a few lakh people is not going to solve the problem.

But then, that’s the way Modi and his colleagues have handled the jobs crisis – by deception, sleights of hand and number fudging. On various occasions, Modi and his band of ministers, have said that so many jobs have been created – sometimes 70 lakhs, sometimes 40 lakhs, and so on. They have used Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s enrolment data to repeatedly show that jobs are being created; whereas, it only shows number of people brought under the provident fund cover. These may or may not be new workers. But Modi and co. blithely tell us that these are the new jobs.

Similarly, various employment generation schemes are quoted to show how jobs are expanding. But these too are tricks of data. For instance, in the Parliament, it was stated by a minister that 17.6 lakh jobs were created under the Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP). This was projected by assuming that for each project for which bank subsidy was sanctioned, 12 new jobs were created. This assumption has no basis – in fact the only survey of such enterprises revealed that average employment in such units was just seven. But who cares! Modi and his associates keep on conjuring up numbers.

This year, 2018, was thus the year which saw rising joblessness, and rising lies about it. It also saw a huge ferment among working people, especially youth, demanding better jobs, and of course, more jobs. In the coming year’s general election, Modi will have a lot to answer for.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Opinion: Now we know why Kashmir is in turmoil

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 06:52:45 +0000

Petty things like the price of petrol, lack of jobs, insignificant fatalities among national sewers, mass rapes in shelter homes, gratuitously suicidal farmers, collapsed small enterprises, Institutions that brazenly insist on being autonomous, and such like, insist on hogging media spaces to the detriment of the larger national interest

Dar Yasin/Associated Press

For donkey’s years, a plethora of ‘think tanks’ and sundry Kashmir watchers have tried to figure out why the state of Jammu & Kashmir is in turmoil. Alas to little effect.

But now we know! There is no Hindu King there anymore. Coming, as this insight does, from the near-Hindu King of India’s largest state, this must give us pause to review all our mistaken assessments of the imbroglio.

You may well ask, why that aforesaid largest state is itself in not such good shape, despite its good fortune in having a near-Hindu King, or why the national realm at large should be so fraught with contentions, notwithstanding the rule by a Hindu Hriday Samrat. However idle and motivated those queries might be, the answer is not far to seek: put simply, there are still residues of western-style, Nehruvian democracy prevalent; whose systems of checks, balances, due processes, and other debilitating libertarian apparatuses continue to thwart the pristine and wholesome reach of Hindu monarchy. Wretchedly also, petty things like the price of petrol, lack of jobs, insignificant fatalities among national sewers, mass rapes in shelter homes, gratuitously suicidal farmers, collapsed small enterprises, Institutions that brazenly insist on being autonomous, and such like, insist on hogging media spaces to the detriment of the larger national interest. Nor are targeted social contentions yet quite adequate to exterminating these and other obstacles to the untrammelled royalty whose unchallenged edicts alone can bring peace and prosperity to India, that is Bharat, although not for want of trying hard.

The larger problem of course is that which dear Donald Trump, doyen of kingly nationalists, never fails to flag tweet after tweet, byte after byte; till such time as certain wrong types of the human species persist in proliferating and making injurious claims to legitimacy, nation after nation, aided and abetted by permissive Constitutionalaties, no Christian or Hindu monarch may have full control of a future of monochromatic purity. What perplexes the royal imagination bolstered by godliness is the question as to why God should have thought it fit to give us “God’s own variety of creatures” rather than just one undifferentiated type wherein there would be one mind and no argument. Clearly, God must be made to answer to this lapse; how, only Trump and Yogi Adityanath may further enlighten us.

Meanwhile, having underscored the roots of the Kashmir problem, all nationalists’ heads must be put together to find a way to reinstall the Hindu monarchy.

For a start, statewide, even country-wide, prayers, jagrans, kirtans may be initiated on state expense to persuade devis and devtas to intervene in the matter.

More things are wrought by prayer than by politics, especially of the pernicious democratic variety.

Professor Badri Raina taught English literature at Delhi University for four decades. He has several collections of poems, essays and translations to his credit. He is the author of books like ‘Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth’, ‘The Underside of Things: India and the World’, ‘Kashmir: A Noble Tryst in Tatters,’ and more.

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1.3 Million Youth Need Jobs Every Month; 8 Million A Year: World Bank

Wed, 02 May 2018 06:13:37 +0000

Mumbai: More than eight million jobs are required every year for India to keep its employment rate constant, as its working age population (above 15 years) is increasing by 1.3 million every month, a new study has found.

India’s employment rate has been declining due to women leaving the job market, according to a World Bank report, ‘Jobless Growth?’, published on April 15, 2018.

While the male employment rate in India between 2005 and 2015 declined “very little”, the female employment rate declined by nearly 5% per year, data show.

India’s employment rate was 52% in 2015, below Nepal (81%), Maldives (66%), Bhutan (65%) and Bangladesh (60%) but above Pakistan (51%), Sri Lanka (49%) and Afghanistan (48%).

Employment Rate, Job Requirement
Country	Monthly increase in population (15+), 2015-2025	Employment rate 2015 (or most recent)	Annual job creation needed to keep employment rate constant, 2015-2025
Afghanistan	64000	48	366100
Bangladesh	170000	60	1213400
Bhutan	1000	65	6400
India	1319000	52	8214600
Maldives	1000	66	4100
Nepal	35000	81	338300
Pakistan	245000	51	1492000
Sri Lanka	10000	49	60400

Source: World Bank
Note: Data sourced from Bangladesh 2015/16 LFS; Bhutan 2012 LSS; India 2011/12 NSS-Thick; Pakistan 2015/16 HIICS; Nepal 2011 LSS; and Sri Lanka 2015 LFS. World Development Indicator data are based on modeled ILO estimates. Employment rate in (%).

The working age population, aged 15 and above, across South Asia is expected to increase between 8% and 41% by 2025.

“To reap the benefits of ‘demographic dividend’, sufficient new jobs need to be created,” the report said.

South Asia re-emerged as the world’s fastest growing economy with growth of 6.3% in the last quarter of 2017 and 7.2% in the first quarter of 2018. The region’s growth is attributed to India’s economic resurgence, post the slow down due to demonetisation and implementation of goods and services tax to 7.3% in 2018 (based on forecast). About 80% of South Asia’s gross domestic product is generated in India, the report said.

Growth, however, is not the only factor to achieve higher employment rates enjoyed by other developing nations, particularly among women, the report argued.

“More than 1.8 million young people will reach working age every month in South Asia through 2025, and the good news is that economic growth is creating jobs in the region,” Martin Rama, World Bank South Asia Region Chief Economist said.

“But providing opportunities to these young entrants while attracting more women into the labor market will require generating even more jobs for every point of economic growth.”

The battle for jobs continue

As many as 18.3 million Indians were unemployed in 2017, and unemployment is projected to increase to 18.9 million by 2019, according to The World Employment and Social Outlook–Trends 2018 report by the International Labour Organization, released on January 22, 2018.

There is widespread resentment among youth with lack of employment opportunities in the country.

The situation seems to be grim, considering the number of people applying for government jobs. Over 28 million applicants are expected to appear for 90,000 jobs offered by the Indian Railways this year, The Times of India reported on March 31, 2018.

More than 200,000 candidates were competing for 1,137 police constable vacancies in Mumbai, many of whom were over-qualified: 423 had degrees in engineering, 167 were Masters in Business Administration and 543 were post-graduates while the basic qualification required for the post was pass in 12th standard.

As many as 590,000 jobs every month–or 7 million annually–were likely to be generated in 2017-18, according to a report, Towards A Payroll Reporting in India, published on January 15, 2018.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed that lies were being spread about lack of jobs quoting new but contested data, FactChecker reported on January 29, 2018.

Over 100,000 jobs in second quarter of 2017-18, double that in first quarter

About 136,000 jobs were added in the July-September quarter of 2017, more than double the number added (64,000 jobs) in the previous (April-June) quarter, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, minister of state (independent charge) for labour and employment, informed the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) in his reply on April 2, 2018 based on the seventh round of quarterly employment survey (QES) report released on March 12, 2018.

The April-June quarter had seen a 65% decline in addition of jobs over January-March 2017 quarter (185,000 jobs).

The QES measures employment across eight major sectors–manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation/restaurants and information technology/business process outsourcing. The eight sectors account for 81% of total employment units having 10 or more workers. The report covers 11,000 units across 36 states and union territories.

The manufacturing sector added the most (65%) jobs between July and September 2017, followed by education (15%). Construction was the only sector that saw job losses.

Jobs added during demonetisation period

As many as 122,000 jobs were added during the October-December 2016 quarter that witnessed demonetisation, an increase of over three times (281%) compared to its previous quarter that added 32,000 jobs.

Further, 185,000 jobs were added in the following January-March 2017 quarter, which sustained the demonetisation impact and slowed down the economy, an increase of nearly 52% over the October-December 2016 quarter.

“Human capital is now the fastest-growing component of India’s wealth,” Ejaz Ghani, lead economist at the World Bank wrote in Mint on April 20, 2018.

“Investing in people through healthcare, quality education, jobs and skills helps build human capital, which is key to supporting economic growth, ending extreme poverty, and creating more inclusive societies.”

(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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Jobless Numbers Continue to Grow But Govt. Remains Unconcerned

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 06:25:13 +0000

Unemployment hit 78-week high as per CMIE while 4.2 crore registered jobseekers for 8.6 lakh job vacancies in govt.’s online portal.

Newsclick Image By Sumit

Unemployment is death by a thousand cuts, and India continues to suffer this death a million times. Two recent sets of data confirm what everybody knows – there are no jobs and more and more people are struggling on the streets.

True to its penchant for turning everything into a digital portal, the Modi govt. created one for job seekers and job vacancies called the National Career Service portal. According to data available on this portal, in the three years 2015-16 to 2017-18, some 861,391 job vacancies were put out while the number of jobseekers registered were a staggering 4.2 crore.

These are not perfect figures. Not all people register at employment exchanges or the online portal. Neither do all employers seeking employees. Yet it gives a sense of what is going on in the real world – there are 50 persons running after every single job opening. Besides showing the dire jobs situation, it is easy to see that such a condition will also keep wages depressed. Employers can fix wage rates arbitrarily and hire those that agree to such low wages because there are so many desperate people out there looking for jobs.

Here is another set of data. Latest CMIE estimates show that joblessness had increased to 7.25% in the first fortnight of April this year. These are preliminary weekly estimates and can dip slightly over a month, but even then, it is the highest level in 78 weeks.

About 13 lakh people join the labour force every month in India. That’s about 1.56 crore people every year. Yet the new job creation rate had fallen to less than 1% in 2017. In fact, the labour force shrank from about 44 crore to 42 crore. These are mind boggling numbers and represents a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

The past four years have seen not just the inability of the Modi led govt. to create jobs but a tendency to make ever wilder projections, assuring so many million jobs in this project and so many in that programme. Finance minister Jaitley, for instance, in his last Budget speech coolly announced that 70 lakh jobs will be created this year. How? Neither he nor anybody else knows.

Industrial growth is tepid, investments are stagnating, rural job creation is in tatters with record number of people seeking turning to the rural job guarantee scheme, exports are down – in short the real economy is stuck in doldrums, whatever the GDP or stock exchange data be.

The pain is all the more acutely felt because Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to create 1 crore jobs. After years of jobless growth under the UPA regime, there was a sense of hope. People voted for him in large numbers mainly drawn by this promise. Yet nothing has changed.

Or rather, under Modi’s watch, India has turned into job-loss economy. According to the latest report of the RBI supported KLEMS Database , India’s employment growth rate fell by 0.1% in 2015-16 and 0.2% in 2016-17, despite the country’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growing by 7.4% and 8.2%, in those years respectively. Several sectors like agriculture, mining and sub-sectors of manufacturing saw declines in labour growth rates.

Conditions of work too have suffered drastic declines with the govt. itself recently declaring that fixed term employment would be legally permissible in all types of industries. This means that temporary or contractual work has now become officially approved, giving employers the unfettered right to hire and fire.

As Modi’s term nears its end in 2019, people await a new path that deals with rampant joblessness and decline of living standards.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Budget 2018: Modi Sarkar has No Jobs Policy

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 05:25:45 +0000

As joblessness and job losses sweep the country, Budget 2018 has no solution to offer.

Newsclick Image by Sumit

The Budget for 2018-19 has been presented and not surprisingly, job creation has been given short shrift by the Modi government. In an incredibly juvenile ‘analysis’ finance minister Arun Jaitley, in his speech, listed precisely six measures his govt. has taken to increase employment in the country. These include waiving EPF contributions and giving some income tax deduction for new employees, giving stipends and partially bearing cost of training to apprentices, sanctioning contract work in apparel and footwear sectors, and increasing maternity leave. Then, Jaitley concludes that due to these measures, 70 lakh new jobs will be created this year.

This perfectly captures the deathly indifference of the present govt. towards employment. It also symbolizes the brazenness with which Modi, Jaitley, et al are sailing through a massive jobs crisis India is grappling with. Jaitley’s argument appears to be that people were not working because mandatory contributions to provident fund were too high, or income tax payable was too high, or contract work was not available! Who would believe this reasoning, that too coming from the finance minister himself?

The reality is that in 2017, total number of jobs added was just 20 lakh, as per CMIE estimates based on a sample survey. This addition works out to an increment of just 0.5% over the whole year. In a condition where about 250 lakh people are joining the working age group (15-49 years) every year and at least 44% of them (110 lakh) are actively looking for jobs, can the addition of 20 lakh jobs be considered any success?

So, how come Jaitley claimed that 70 lakh jobs were created this year? He is claiming this on the basis of a controversial study by two economists who arrived at the estimate using enrollment in EPF, ESIC and NPS (three social security programmes). The assumptions made by these economists have been severely criticized by several other economists. Use of arbitrary age groups, double counting, and other fatal lacunae have been pointed out. That the finance minister should take recourse to this rather questionable study to define a country’s jobs policy is a travesty that only the present govt. is capable of.

The govt. is so blinded by its own rhetoric – or perhaps, so clueless about what to do – that in his Budget speech, Jaitley went on to announce more concessions on EPF payments, extension of fixed term (read contract) work to all sectors and setting up of ‘model aspirational’ skill centres (whatever that means) in all districts. This comprises the sum total of govt. policy on employment.

There is no policy initiative to boost industrial growth, no measures to revive flagging industrial investment, no desire to increase public investment in industrial promotion, and nothing for the MSME sector apart from the grand declaration that Rs. 3794 crore has been allocated for credit support, capital and interest subsidy and innovations. This last claim too is disingenuous because the total allocation to the MSME ministry has increased from Rs. 6481.96 crore last year (revised estimate) to Rs.6552.61 crore this year – an increase of mere 1% that will be more than wiped out by inflation!

What about the agricultural sector? Since a vast majority of Indians are employed in this sector, a serious attempt to resolve its ongoing downturn could help ease the exploding jobs crisis. Although Jaitley was fulsome in his rhetoric about the importance of agriculture and rural areas, his biggest policy announcement – that farmers will get 1.5 times return on their production cost – is just a pronouncement. There is nothing in the fine print to assure that this will actually be implemented through higher support prices. In other words it’s a promise that is no different than the one given 4 years ago by PM Modi during the 2014 election campaign and which has remained unfulfilled till now.

Like everything else in this Budget, the jobs claims and proposals are empty rhetoric, devoid of any substance. It is not possible to fool all the people all the time, as the old adage goes. Modi, Jaitley & co. had better realise this fast, or there is comeuppance coming their way very soon.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Children out of school, people out of work: A year after demonetisation, Varanasi weavers still on their knees

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 06:29:48 +0000

As one enters the famous and dense colonies of Varanasi where weavers or ‘Bunkars’ of the city live and work, the familiar sound of handlooms and power looms seems absent; at least a lot less than what it was before November 8, 2016.

On that day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that from midnight onwards, notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 would be withdrawn from circulation. But the decision – which was taken on a pretext to curb the black money hidden outside the banks – did little to end the menace of black money, but did sound the death knell for the weavers of Varanasi.

Varanasi is the centre of weaving industry and known across the world for the finest Benarasi sarees. But the beauty of the saree compares in stark contrast to the condition of the weavers, a number of whom have started moving on to other jobs. Their children, once in school, are also now turning to weaving to ensure that the industry remains afloat.

Take the example of Wakeel Akhtar, a 50-year-old weaver who had grown his business of weaving enough to progress to power looms from handlooms. But for the past one year, only one of his eight power looms are running. The rest remain idle and gather dust.
All thanks to demonetisation, which was followed by GST.

Akhtar said, “During demonetisation, we started taking loans from several people. And that loan kept us running for several weeks. Otherwise, we were spending too much of our time standing in bank queues, rather than working on our looms.”

Soon after demonetisation, Varanasi’s weavers lost their daily earning. As a sector which survives on daily payment basis, the weaving community of Banaras was able to reach some sort of settlement only four months after the currency ban.

“For the bigger businessmen and firms, we were the tools to return the old currency in the banks,” said Akhtar, referring to the fact that small-scale workers, craftsmen and weavers were getting paid in older currencies, and they had to stand outside banks to exchange them.

But there are much bigger problems before the weavers, like the kids who have left schools and started learning to weave. 42-year-old Mohammad Azam is the father of three children. All were studying in the school until April 2017. After the academic session concluded, Azam was unable to register them again for the next session.

Azam explains the situation, “There are two kinds of weavers. The first is the loom owners. We have to take care of everything, from threads to the looms. And second are contractual weavers, who come here and work without any sort of responsibility for things, and they have to get paid a definite amount every day, irrespective of the conditions.”

“Both sections have taken a hit, but the second category has moved to other jobs. We, the loom owners, have no such option,” said Azam. “So I did not have any money to let my kids continue the studies. Now all have indulged in weaving because there is no any way out of this,” he added.

Sabir Ali, 30, was only a weaver before, but now he deals in other kinds of stuff related to weaving, like making threads. For him too, this was the only option. Ali said, “Luckily, I still weave, but fewer than before. But many of my friends went to Surat or Mumbai, in order to earn better in other jobs, as weaving is a dying business in Varanasi.”

Ali said, “Soon after problems of demonetisation ended, it was the cashless India thing which took a toll. Businessmen started to pay us in the cheques – as the government introduced a rule of not paying more than Rs 10,000 in cash.”

“We were people who lived on the daily wages. We used to spend our every day’s earning into the food and clothes. Now with the cheques, we have to wait three days for the amount to appear in our bank accounts, “said Ali. “So to feed, we have to have something else, so I am also selling low-quality threads to weavers.”

Sabir Ali took us into a house of his friend. There were four people sitting in the loom and finishing Banarasi Saree and cotton Saree jobs that came to them after four weeks of idleness. Aslam Ansari said from behind of one of the loom, “And we will get our payment more than a week after we submit our work.”
But the more surprising scene was in the adjacent room, to show which Sabir Ali took us into the particular house. There were two boys named Mohammad Alam (13) and Shamim Akhtar (14) who were weaving together on a loom. Shamim Akhtar still goes to school, while Alam quit recently. They both were learning to weave. Sabir Ali said, “They are not studying not because they are poor, but because their father cannot earn much on his own.” The kids nodded to this claim.

It is not a new thing to see kids learning the weaving process, but seeing them leaving studies because of weaving is indeed new.

The weavers, who were slowly recovering from the demonetisation disaster, were hit again in 2017 when the government introduced GST as “one nation, one tax”.

Rajeev Kumar Modi, a 45-year-old thread dealer in Varanasi, is also suffering the pain of demonetisation and GST. Modi said, “Soon government banned the currency, my warehouse left filled with the raw materials and threads for several months. No weaver was able to buy from us, so we were not able to bring more.”

“Soon the conditions normalised over a period of time, but after GST, weavers do not come here often,” said Modi.

He also said, “Previously we used to sell 20 or 30 kilograms of threads every day, now this has become our weekly count.”

Cotton and silk threads fell under 5 percent slab, while the artificial silk threads – which constitutes the major part of the business in Varanasi’s weaving community – fell under the 18% GST slab. Earlier, the Central Board of Excise and Customs refused to consider saree as readymade or made-up. And even if it was considered made-up, a mere 2% tax was levied on Sarees. But after GST, the prices of the final product as a saree went up by around 20%, but weavers’ wages were cut down.

“A businessman has to sell a saree to various customers with a profitable margin, so he cut down our wages. If we were getting thousand rupees for completing a saree before GST, now we are getting only Rs 700-800 for the same piece,” tells Shamim Ansari, a 32-year-old weaver from the city. “Our wages fell down because the profit margins had to be maintained,” he added.

In addition to the GST on threads, GST of 5 percent was also introduced on the Sarees, which faced heat from the various confederation of Saree dealers. And seemingly, government’s apathy towards the protest has hit the PM’s own constituency most.

One can argue that the issues of weavers have come to the notice of the government and that they are working to address these issues. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a Trade Facilitation and Craft Museum Centre in Varanasi in September this year. The goal to establish the centre was to promote the work of weavers and artisans of the city. However, many weavers have not even heard of the centre, and those who know little about it say – if Mohammad Saqib to be quoted – that the centre is a museum and showcase of weavers’ work. “One should see the conditions from the ground that we are not able to build up any kind of product in our traditional workshops and looms,” added Saqib.

Moreover, the central government erected a Weaver’s colony and training centre in a Karsara village nearby of Varanasi in 1993-94. But the training centre lies unused because of its distance from the city’s centre which is more than 15 kilometres. So, while the government seems to have taken steps, their effect is limited and does little to assuage the pain of the weavers. And this is visible in areas around Bajardiha or Peelikothi – the two major centres of weavers in Varanasi – many weaving houses can be seen locked, even in peak times. Mohammad Jamaal, a 77-year-old resident of the community said, “This was the season of weaving. No one could sleep due to high demands ahead of wedding season. You could see weavers working at least 16 hours a day. Now you can see most people shutting their shops.”

Courtesy: Two Circles

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Achche Din? From job-less’ to ‘job-loss’ economy

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 06:12:22 +0000

The falling work participation rate shows that the economy is in deep crisis. Various other economic indicators show this as well.

Newsclick Image by Nitesh Kumar

In a stark and chilling confirmation of what the whole country has known for some time, a govt. report shows that Indian workforce (those actually working) declined from about 54% of the working age population in 2011-12 to 51% in 2015-16. While the working age population increased by 2.9% per year during this period, the number of people with jobs increased at less than half the rate, at just 1.2% per year. These estimates emerge from the Labour Bureau’s Employment-Unemployment Survey reports for these years.

The falling work participation rate shows that the economy is in deep crisis. Various other economic indicators show this as well. Growth of credit flow to industry is at an all-time low, the index of industrial production is dipping, and wages in industry are stagnant. It is a crisis which is engulfing even those who own means of production, barring perhaps the big players.

The Labour Bureau’s data reveals a much bigger problem – the piling backlog of unemployed. Although the working age population increased by 4.66 crore between 2011-12 and 2015-16, those who were working increased by about 1.1 crore only. In other words, about 1.2 crore people become ready to work every year but only 0.2 crore actually get jobs.

The difference of about 3.5 crore comprises some who are not looking for jobs at all, like women or students. But the majority is of those who are unable to find jobs. If this backlog of unemployed keeps accumulating every year, a stupendous task confronts the government in coming years.

Rural areas, home to the country’s biggest workforce in agriculture, showed a small annual increase of only 1% in employment while jobs grew at 1.8% in urban areas. This reflects the over saturation of the agriculture sector with working people and its diminishing capacity to absorb new workers. Since jobs in industries and services do not seem to be opening up at a fast enough rate, the jobless are caught in a vicious cycle.

Another aspect, repeatedly brought out in various reports is the disguised unemployment rampant in India. A very large number of people are working at very low wages, or part time, or for a few months in different jobs interspersed with periods of joblessness. The Labour Bureau report for 2015-16 shows that just 61% of workers actually work for all 12 months of the year. The rest work less than that. In rural areas, this proportion is even lower at 52%.

Falling employment is just the big symptom of the crisis. Workers have been affected also by stagnating or falling wages. Take the growth in salaries and wages paid to workers/employees by the corporate sector. According to analysis of RBI data on corporate finances by CMIE, the average annual growth in real wages during the past three years (2014-15 through 2016-17) works out to 3.9%, far lower than the long term annual average of 6% and a median of 5%. It also compares very poorly with the real GDP growth rate of about 6 per cent during the same period.

The prospects for the future are looking dim because all the underlying factors seem to be in a fatal tailspin. Between July 2016 and July 2017, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) released by the govt’s. Central Statistical Office (CSO) has increased by just 1.2% indicating almost no improvement. This means that industrial production is hardly growing. In which case, there is very little scope for increasing jobs and with an army of unemployed available, industrialists are likely to push down wages even more.

Similarly, between August 2016 and July 2017, bank credit to industry grew by just 0.4% and for the services sector by 4.6%, according to RBI data. Credit is a measure of how much economic activity is going on. A growth of this kind is negligible and is like no growth. This is likely to cast a long shadow in the coming months because Modi sarkar has no clue about how to revive production and growth. India is facing a dark economic crisis and sadly, the reins of power are held by people who are only interested in helping their cronies.

This article was first published on Newsclick.in.

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Modi mocks ‘pessimists’, but RBI says a whole lot of Indians are pretty pessimistic about the economy

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 07:18:58 +0000

Last week, Prime Minister Modi gave an hour long speech denouncing ‘pessimists’ who refused to see the bright side of demonetisation and other transformations that his government’s able management had visited upon the economy.

Image: PTI

We at Kafila, did a quick fact-check offering many reasons for pessimism, but as they say in Delhi – humari kya aukaat hai?

Now, a set of surveys by the Reserve Bank of India have concluded that 65% of the 5100 metropolitan households polled feel the economic situation has either worsened or stayed the same. It’s a small sample, but the results are revealing. To quote :

Households’ current perceptions on the general economic situation remained in the pessimistic zone for four successive quarters, with the outlook worsening — RBI

For those you wondering – “four successive quarters” is a full year.

I would urge most readers to read the report in full, but here are some key takeaways:

The Jobs ‘crisis’ is hitting supernova proportions
Not surprisingly, the biggest worry for households is jobs. Not only do 70% of households feel that employment prospects have worsened in the past year, 50.1% feel things will either remain the same or worsen (26%).

But then this relentlessly optimistic government that thinks the jobs crisis is actually opportunity. According to the present administration’s Railways Minister and resident wunderkind, Piyush Goyal, the reduction in jobs shows more Indians want to be entrepreneurs.

Many of those with jobs are earning less
Almost one in three respondents ( 27%) said they were earning less than before, while 46.8% said they were earning the same as before. People remain optimistic about the future, with 49% expecting to earn more in the coming year – but the structural crisis in the Indian economy suggests that is unlikely.

People are spending more – but that’s only because prices have gone up

Respondents’ pessimism on the price level has also become accentuated in the recent period — RBI

But don’t panic – as the government continues to assure us – an uptick is right around the corner. Till then, try to stay out of what the RBI calls the “pessimistic zone.”

Courtesy: Kafila.online

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