A Beleaguered Lot

A plethora of labour legislations notwithstanding, the plight of predominantly unorganised rural workers is still pitiable. Depending primarily on wage employment for their sustenance, landless agricultural labourers continue to be exploited by the landed community in most parts of the country. The only exceptions perhaps are the agriculturally progressive areas where the availability of workers outstrips the demand and the states where effective government intervention has led to improved wage structure, irrespective of the state of agricultural development. The official poverty alleviation programmes, which use wage employment as a tool for lifting people out of the poverty bracket, too, have led to improvement in the wages of casual farm labour but their impact tends to be limited.

Data compiled by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that the rural wage rates in India in real terms (deflated by the food price indices) have tended to decline steadily since 1985 with an exception of 1990 when they rose. The ILO real wage index for India (1985=100) declined to 94.5 in 1986, 88.5 in 1987, 77.4 in 1988 and further to 71.6 in 1989. It, however, rose to 81.4 in 1990 only to decline sharply again to 68.1 in 1991.

The ILO has brought out an excellent document on the state of rural labour in different countries. It was released yesterday at Geneva on the occasion of the five-day tripartite meeting of workers, employers and government representatives on improving the conditions of employment and work of agricultural wage labourers in the context of economic restructuring.

It points out that actual wages are far short of statutory minimum levels mostly in states with a less productive agricultural sector and a large poverty-stricken population