Rs 25 cash, Rs 25 wheat, sweat & tears

‘‘This work is not for you,’’ says Dixit, watching the hard soil fly in my face. ‘‘Even we find it difficult at times.’’ As if someone half his age is too tender for this work. I think I squirm but this is neither the time nor the place for reflection.

For, although the searing heat of summer is gone—there are clouds in the sky—in minutes, I am dripping sweat. My arms tremble as I get ready to strike another blow.

I have joined these villagers of Dhalewadi village, 53 km from Pune, just four days before this project is scheduled to end on July 6—they have been here since June 22. In fact, they have been doing similar work for the past four rain-parched years.

Intermittently, they have crushed stones, built kuchcha roads or canals, dug water holes—in short, whatever the government has devised for them under EGS so that they may earn roughly Rs 50 a day (Rs 25 in cash, Rs 25 in wheat).

It’s not easy. Mostly farmers, their crop killed by drought, they have had to trade their farming tools for construction equipment, and take to the only available alternative for a living.

It’s this scheme that the Central Government wants to replicate across the nation by bringing in a new law—the Common Minimum

Programme ambitiously says it’s employment for ‘‘asset-creating public works.’’

But one look around me and I know this ‘‘workplace’’ is as ad hoc as ad hoc can get. Canals built through EGS last year and the year before that are still there but not because they are ‘‘assets,’’ but because the rains haven’t come to wash them away. Where they have, the roads built through EGS have vanished. As I walk a couple of kilometres past the carpet-like green cover of new Bajra plantations, from Dhalewadi to my ‘‘EGS workplace,’’ my colleague villager Krishna Vasant Kalanne whispers, ‘‘This is the last of it. Nobody knows whether there will be any new project a week after.’’

Typically, during the rains, the number of EGS projects lessen, simply because the farmers don’t need work. But the rains came and are playing truant again.

Before I joined them, the villagers, armed with pickaxe, shovel, spade and soil-collectors (ghamelas), had all lined up to meet the mukadam (site supervisor). He had earmarked work in groups of 12 each, with the women mostly ferrying dug-up soil.

‘‘For every 3 cubic metres of work done, each woman ends up walking 7.20 km and ferrying 360 ghamelas,’’ points out agriculture officer B J Shelke, who is on an inspection along with his assistant V L Chavan. This is seen as ‘‘easier’’ work so the women get paid less—Rs 15.54 plus the Rs 25 in wheat. Salary time: once a week, end of the week.

I work for three hours, taking a break every 10 minutes or so. Try breaking hard soil with chisel and hammer, removing rocks and boulders and digging sidewalls.

My clothes are a giveaway but that hardly matters. My colleagues are helpful: I get tips on how to bring the axe down so that the soil doesn’t enter my eyes, why I should keep the ghamela near my feet since that cuts down the spill-over.

Giving me these tips is Rangnath, who at 70, is way past the EGS age (anyone between 18-60 may sign up) and he admits as much: ‘‘Ideally workers above 60 are not allowed here but do we have a choice? Things would have been worse had it not been for EGS. Now, we can at least have two meals a day.’’ One of them is lunch, at 1.30 pm—bhakri (hard bread) and onion. I look around, a few have pickle and a green vegetable. All washed down with water which they keep in canisters.

It wasn’t always like this—just a few weeks ago, they had to travel 3 km for drinking water, the monsoon took care of that.

Meal over, it’s back to digging. I watch Chhaya Baban Kalanne handle a 5-kg hammer with ease. ‘‘Unlike us, she likes to do the hard work,’’ says her friend. Meaning: she will get Rs 25, not Rs 15.54 as the other one.

My younger colleague is Rajendra Sable, who has dug many trenches at EGS sites. A first-class Arts graduate, Sable says he has no choice but to work so that he can take care of his parents.

Another colleague is Santosh Kalanne who has had little time to think of the future, despite having cleared his Class XII board exam with 62 per cent this year. ‘‘I have to support my father and brother,’’ he says in between ferrying soil.

It’s clear from the faces and the stories of those around me that this backbreaking work gives them a 10-to-5 structure in their lives, a feeling of a job done and money earned—so what if the job’s sense of purpose is just to dig a hole. It’s also clear that there are villagers like Sable and Kalanne who would drop their shovels and spades the moment they see an alternative. But at 5 pm, as they head for home, the alternative is difficult to spot.

On my drive back to Pune, I look at the figures I have scribbled in my notebook as research: since 1999, Rs 3,930.34 crore has been spent on EGS in this state.