FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Plight Of Agriculture Workers
Urgency For Redress

By Rajkumar K.C

DEVELOPMENT of a country largely depends upon agriculture or industrial productivity. The level of productivity determines the economic growth. In a country like Nepal, where more than 85 per cent of people are involved in agriculture, the role of workers, whether they are farmers or wage earners is highly significant in many respects. Around six million rural agricultural workers who constitute 80-85 per cent of total labour force in the country are still in the state of negligence. Despite their huge contributions, they are grossly unaccounted in the national economy.

Even the concerned office of His Majesty’s Government does not have any statistics of agricultural workers. Moreover, politically fragmented trade unions here sound reluctant to work for these workers in unorganised sector.

On the one hand organising workers in the agricultural sector is not easy, on the other lack of awareness, poverty and influx of workers across the border has intensified the problem. Of course, there are number of problems in the agriculture workers. Even trade unions have set aside this sector as a different issue.

In fact, the problem does not lie with agriculture workers alone, even the workers in the organised sectors are the victims of multifaceted problems such as wage, health and safety and security. The government does not have any concrete programmes to support labour and trade unionists are also politically motivated.

Trade unionists often blame the government for doing nothing in safeguarding the interests of workers even in the organised sector.

The Labour Act –2048, which was introduced, a couple of years ago has not been effective to address the real problem of workers even in the organized sectors such as -construction, manufacturing and hotel. The Act is almost silent about agricultural workers.

Though the government had introduced the system of minimum wage for rural agricultural workers some two years before, it has not been effectively implemented in many parts of the country. Workers in agriculture are getting the same amount of wage as they used to receive some ten years ago.

It is a great irony that even after the implementation of the new wage system to the agricultural workers they are not getting the wage of sixty rupees per day (eight hours). And it seems that the Department of Labour is not bothered about it.

Nepal’s multi-structural geography, in which more than 83 per cent is covered by the hilly and mountainous region is dominated by agriculture where around 60 per cent total labour force exist. The remaining 40 per cent labour force is in the Terai region.

The agricultural sector, which has 38 per cent contribution in the total economy, is afflicted by the traditional system of employing workers mainly in the terai sector.

On the one hand, agricultural workers are still not paid according to the government’s new rule, on the other Nepalese workers have no options other than accepting a very nominal amount of wage because of a fear of being replaced by the workers from across the border as they are cheaper than Nepalese workers.

If the government and trade unionists were serious about tackling the issue of rural agricultural workers, the socio-economic problems in the country would not have been so complicated today. Had the focus of rural agricultural workers were on economy the disparity between rich and poor would not be so alarming.

However, the government since the last couple of years seemed to be more concerned and is committed to work for safeguarding the rights of workers both in both organised and unorganised sectors including the agriculture.

Besides, the government has taken initiatives for the effective implementation of the Labour Act -2048.

Nepal has signed most of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions and is committed for uplift of labour as well. However, nothing seems to have done in practice so far.

It is said that the Department of Labour (DoL) does nothing except keeping records of workers going abroad for blue colour job. And trade unions are not well equipped too. In fact they are confined to the urban areas where they have better access to the donor agencies.

The rural agriculture workers are facing several problems including health and minimum wage.

According to a statistics, more than two million agricultural workers are wage earners and around one million are farmers as well as wage earners. The number of families involved in agriculture is around 3.6 million.

The ILO has been providing Nepal a substantial cooperation to support workers in the real sense. But ILO’s huge support has also failed to uplift workers to a desired extent. As most of its (ILO’s) support go through local NGOs and trade unions, there is always a high chance of leakages of such support in reality.

Most of the non-government organisations (NGOs) are not serious towards their objectives despite ILO’s cooperation. In many cases NGOs are mis-utilising the support being rendered by donor agencies in the name of child and bonded labour.

If the government, trade unions and NGOs were serious towards safeguarding the interest of workers it would enhance their confidence as a result of which national productivity would get a boost.

There is no doubt that the workers in organized sectors are making significant contributions in accelerating economic growth, but the role of agriculture workers in nation building is equally important.

However, the situation of workers in the organized sectors is not satisfactory and the overall picture of labour in agriculture sector is more pathetic. The problem of agriculture workers is not the problem of trade unions or DoL alone, the civil society should also be vigilant whether the workers are receiving the optimum cost of their toil or not. On top of that the real trade union movement in the country becomes almost paralyzed by keeping the agriculture workers aside. Hence concerned authorities and trade unionists should be more conscious about safeguarding the interests of agriculture workers. Even if some changes take place in the Labour Act, it should be for the larger interest of workers. Any amendment in the Act should address the problems in the labour sector.

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