All officials and journalists assessed that this was among the largest protest actions by women in the last 10 years after the new Palghar district was carved out of Thane district in 2014. Most of the women were Adivasis, but there was also a fair share of non-Adivasi women from different walks of life. They hailed from all 8 tehsils of Palghar district – Talasari, Dahanu, Jawhar, Mokhada, Vikramgad, Wada, Vasai and Palghar.

Giving resounding slogans on their demands as they marched, the sea of women (see pictures ) marched right into the collectorate and gheraoed it. It was only then that the administration swung into action, mobilised the officials, and held a two and a half hour discussion with the delegation from the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). CPI(M) MLA Vinod Nikole was present. Two major decisions were taken.

1. The dates for tehsil level camps were finalised to resolve all issues related to ration (PDS) were decided upon. Both government officials and AIDWA leaders would be present.

2. On the other serious issues of water, employment, and health, the District Collector would convene a separate meeting of all officials with AIDWA at the earliest.

Preceding this mass protest, AIDWA women had led a 15-day campaign of filling in thousands of forms on the above issues, and these were submitted to the authorities and official receipts were obtained. Hundreds of local activists of AIDWA worked very hard for the success of this action. They were helped by fraternal organisations like the AIKS, CITU, and DYFI.

The delegation comprised AIDWA district secretary Lahani Dauda, district president Prachi Hatiwlekar, district treasurer Sunita Shingda, and other leaders.

On May 26, Thursday, another such AIDWA-led rally of women from tehsils of Thane district will march to the Thane district collectorate on the same issues.

Related:

AIDWA Calls for Fight Against Increasing Gender-Based Violence

With a 17-point demand charter, AIKS-led 10,000-strong Kisan Long March starts in Nashik

An AIKS Struggle Convention at Dahanu, Palghar where vows were taken to intensify struggles around land and farmer rights

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Even as a massive mobilization and awareness campaign across the country by central trade unions has reportedly reached over 20 crore workers and thousands are heading to Delhi to participate in the 3-day historic Maha-Padav (massive sit-in) for their demands, the central govt. is scrambling to deal with the situation by calling a hasty meeting with trade unions on 7 November.

“There is hardly any material change in the govt.’s position since the general strike in 2015 as far as we know. But they have called all central trade unions and we will go and see what they have to say,” said Tapan Sen, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which has been leading the campaign for the 12-point charter of demands along with 9 other central trade unions. BMS, the trade union affliated to ruling BJP has opted out of the movement and decided to hold a separate show.

“First, the Labour Ministry called us on 3rd November, but they deliberately left out the Congress affiliated INTUC. We refused to attend such a meeting. Then they have called INTUC also. This is the first victory of workers’ unity,” he added.

Over 300,000 workers from all states in the country and across all sectors of work are expected to congregate at the Capital’s Parliament demanding better wages and social security, ending contract labour, control of inflation, stopping of labour law ‘reforms’, end to privatization of public sector, etc. This will be the biggest and longest assembly of protest ever at Delhi. 

“The campaign for this maha-padav has been unprecedented in its scale and depth. Every district in the country has seen a public event and campaign of mass contact with workers in every walk of life. The response has been massive and enthusiastic all round. There is so much anger among the workers at the policies of this govt. that people are just waiting to get into action,” Sen told Newsclick. 

There are reports that workers contingents are already preparing to board trains from distant states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu in the south and from the North-Eastern states. 

Preparing to leave for Delhi, Shamsu Punnakkal from Mallapuram district in Kerala said that BJP is dividing workers on religious lines so that they become slaves of employers. 

“Acting at the behest of big industrialists, BJP govt. is not raising wages, amending labour laws, and generally pursuing anti-people policies. That’s why over 600 of us are travelling to Delhi to participate in the protest,” he said.

KV Unnikrishnan, a worker in the Vallivattam Cooperative Society in Thrissur district, Kerala, told Newsclick that he is leaving his place to join the maha-padav to fight for strengthening the cooperative sector, which is being abused and eroded by the Modi govt.

“Modi govt. is scared of cooperatives because they are a threat to the corporates. That is why BJP is trying to shut down cooperatives. We will never allow that,” he told Newsclick over phone.

The maha-padav follows a series of general strikes in 2015 and 2016, and a workers’ march to Parliament in 2013. Sources say that the trade unions are likely to give a call for general strike early next year if the govt. does not bend.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

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This week, media reports indicate that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sweepingly intends to encourage states to scrap the public distribution scheme (PDS) system and directly transfer money into bank accounts of poor people. Apparently the PM quoted the success of miniscule pilots conducted in Haryana and Puducherry after they “closed their PDS systems”.
 
The Right to Food Campaign strongly condemns this centralised decision-making process by the central government and excessive pressure on states based on speculative “alternative facts”. 
 
For one, despite the pilots while Chandigarh has made a complete transition to cash transfers, the rest of Haryana continues to have functional ration shops. In Puducherry too beneficiaries continue to receive both cash and food grains and the PDS has not shutdown for a fact. 
 
Second, these pilot experiments have been far from successful. A comprehensive survey conducted for the government’s own NITI Aayog by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in 2016 indicated that the pilots have had at best “mixed results”. 50 percent of surveyed beneficiaries received either no or less cash than that they were entitled to in lieu of subsidised foodgrains. 
 
Unsuprisingly, majority of beneficiaries continued to prefer food to cash. Another survey conducted by the Centre for Equity Studies (CES) in 2015 also found that 40 percent of the households in Chandigarh were not receiving the cash entitlement, despite their names being on beneficiary lists.
 
Third, there have been waves of protests in these union territories against the transition to cash, which has been largely unreported in the national media. In Puducherry, high decibel protests against cash transfers resulted in an earlier 2015 cash pilot being abandoned within 2 months of its launch. Gram panchayats in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, where ration shops are managed by cooperatives and not private dealers, had stalled the rollout of cash transfers and now it has only been partially implemented in urban pockets.
 
India has half a million fair price shops. The National Food Security Act guarantees two of every three Indians 5 kilos of subsidised foodgrain every month. The highly urbanised union territories, despite their better-than-average conditions of infrastructure and accessibility compared to the rest of rural India,have not yet succeded in implementing cash transfers. Worse, across India there is only 1 bank branch for every 11 ration shops.
 
With famers already reeling under an agrarian crisis it is also entirely unclear what will happen to India’s 48 million tonne mountain of food stocks, if the PDS were to be replaced with cash nationwide. The Right to Food Campaign condems the excessive pressure on states to dismantle the public distribution system which is a lifeline for 4 of every 5 Indians.

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Carried out among 80 households, consisting of 284 individuals in November, the survey, published in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), India’s premier social science journal, has said that of the 80 households, only 50 were “successful” and received full entitlements at correct prices.

Further, according to the survey, “53 of 80 (66%) surveyed households reported glitches with one or more of the five technological components of the system”, adding, even before the introduction of ABBA, of the 80 households, 71 (89%) “reported receiving full entitlements at correct prices.”

The report, which has been prepared by three scholars – Anmol Somanchi, a postgraduate student of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; Srujana Bej, a student of law at the Nalsar University, Hyderabad; and Mrityunjay Pandey, an MPhil at the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad – says, “Though Aadhaar is technically not an eligibility criterion, ABBA is systematically leading to exclusion at two levels.”

First, says the report, “The lack of an Aadhaar number automatically disqualifies eligible individuals from being listed in the household ration card. Among surveyed households, 12% (34 out of 284) of eligible individuals’ names were missing from the ration cards, leading to a loss for the concerned household as PDS entitlements are defined in per capita terms (in Telangana, each beneficiary is entitled to 6 kg of grains per month).”

“While there could be other reasons for missing names, 10 out of 34 reported the lack of an Aadhaar card as the reason and we suspect that seven children’s names were missing due to Aadhaar”, the report states.

“More than one-fifth (21%) of sample households reported Aadhaar seeding issues”, the report states, adding, “Respondents had submitted all Aadhaar documents to their respective circle offices, but they found that their names were missing from the National Food Security Act (NFSA) list.”
Secondly, the report states, “Almost 40% of the surveyed households reported persistent fingerprint authentication errors, that only specific fingers worked, or that only certain household member’s fingerprints worked.”

Pointing out that internet is the essential infrastructure on which the ABBA rests, the report says, despite Hyderabad’s decent network facilities, many households reported problems with internet connectivity. “This implies delays in grain disbursal and having to make more than one visit to the PDS outlet. Internet connectivity has frustrated not just beneficiaries but also dealers”, it adds.

“The dealer at Yapral complained of connectivity issues every day of the week after 8 pm (a time when beneficiaries could come after work). The dealer at Osman Gunj revealed having to face internet issues for an hour or two every day. Both dealers expressed displeasure over the resultant slowing down of sales”, the report says.

The report also finds that in several instances persons were still in possession of their old ration cards. “Despite completing the application procedure and receiving official communication of approval via a paper slip or SMS, they had not received their new ration card and were not getting rations”, the report says.

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