No-work-no pay cycle affects mothers and malnourished children

A malnourished child drinks milk mixed with baby powder, while another breastfeeds at the rural hospital in Palghar’s Mokhada tehsil. (Photo: Debashish Dey)

It might seem that lack of food is the main contributing factor for the rampant malnutrition in Palghar. But a spot visit to the district made by The Asian Age team revealed that the problem has manifold reasons behind it — paucity of employment, no resources of income and the government machinery neglecting the plight of tribals, failing to implement key schemes, have all created a vicious cycle of poverty that is snatching the lives of malnourished children.

The Palghar district, especially Mokhada tehsil, which around 140 km from Mumbai, has been in the news over the past few weeks after more than 600 children have died there this year due to alleged malnutrition. Minister for tribal affairs Vishnu Savra, women and child development minister Pankaja Munde and the leaders of opposition in both the Houses, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and Dhananjay Munde, went there recently to take stock of the situation after media reports slammed the government over the deaths.

When The Asian Age was driving into the district, there were a few men and women cutting grass by the side of the road that leads into Khoch village. Hiraman Wagh (65), was one of the people bunching the cut grass together. He said: “The only work we have here, which we can do for four months in a year, is to cut the grass that appears along the roadside during the rains. We get Rs 80 per quintal (100 kg) for the grass, which is later used as fodder. But one person can work only enough for one quintal a day.”

This means that a couple can earn around Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per month through this job. “This amount is hardly enough when you take into account the cost of travel, food and other things we need for basic sustenance. The question of saving for our future doesn’t even arise,” Mr Wagh said.

Once the grass-cutting season is over, a majority of the Katkari families shift to Nashik to work in stone quarries or to Bhiwandi to work in brick kilns. Rajendra Wagh, one such annual migrant, said, “We don’t have proper living facilities at the quarries and sleep in temporary tents or out in the open. We also have to manage our food with the daily wages we get, which means that there is no money left over later.”

Hiraman Wagh added that the food grains promised under the public distribution system and the Food Security Act — which allows the Katkari tribals to get 35 kg of wheat and rice from ration shops — fails to reach them. What’s worse, he said, is that they have job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which amounts to nothing since they have no work for most of the year.

When contacted, Ms Munde told The Asian Age that the criteria for MGNREGS in the state be changed to include grass-cutting as bona fide work. “It’s shameful that tribals get only a token amount of money for cutting fodder. If this work is added in the employment guarantee scheme, the people could get assured wages of Rs 192 per day per person,” she said.

Meanwhile, of the four major tribes in Palghar district — the other three being the Thakur, Koli and Walri communities — the Katkaris continue to be the most downtrodden, the most backward of the lot. Even health minister Deepak Sawant admitted, “The Katkaris are the most backward tribe and have the worst illiteracy rate. The percentage of deaths in this indigenous tribe is higher than in any other tribe.”

Jayram Govind Wagh, a teacher at a zilla parishad school in the area, said: “Land holding among the Katkari tribe is almost non-existent. They cannot sow rice due to the topography here, and are forced to work in stone quarries,” before concluding, “but no work means no pay. That is the cycle, which ultimately affects a married woman and her newborn child.”