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12-07-2025
- Health
- Scroll.in
Indian women are shouldering a gruelling double shift
Indian women disproportionately bear the burden of unpaid domestic and care work, and this burden is especially acute for urban women, with domestic responsibilities clashing with 'corporate burnout', work-related stress and mental health concerns. This is exacerbated by the inequality in employment trends and due to limited access to essential infrastructure such as healthcare and childcare, data show and experts say. India's 2024 Time Use Survey showed that on average, an Indian woman or girl, six years and above, spent 426 minutes each day on unpaid care and domestic work for household members, nearly the same amount of time as in 2019. They also spent 341 minutes a day on employment-related activities (343 minutes in 2019). But urban women spend more time on employment-related activities (391 minutes a day) while spending almost the same time on domestic and care work (427 minutes a day). This implies a higher double burden – defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Gender Studies as the workload of people who do both paid work and unpaid domestic work – on urban women than on rural women. In January 2024, IndiaSpend reported that married working women in India spend significantly less time in self-care, leisure, socialising and religious activities than married working men. Need to compensate A study by the Centre for Economic and Data Analysis at Ashoka University shows that the increase in labour force participation between 2017-'18 (51.5%) and 2023-'24 (60.5%) was primarily driven by the doubling of female labour force participation in rural areas from 23.5% to 42.8%. But this increase has come from self-employment and casual work, says Puja Guha, an Associate Professor at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. Of the proportion of women employed, regular wage employment made up 16% in 2024, down from 21% in 2017-'18. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey data for 2024, women working in their own-account (working in their own businesses) or home-based enterprises made up 73.5% of women's work in rural areas in 2024, compared to 42.3% in urban areas. In a study with her team, Guha observed that women in rural areas tend to be more engaged in self-employment and unpaid work when there is highly 'gender-insensitive' infrastructure based on the gender-sensitivity index. 'The gender-sensitivity index is based on data from four domains – the gender sensitivity of governance-related infrastructure, physical infrastructure, education-related infrastructure, and health-related infrastructure,' the study states. They found that self-employment and unpaid work were positively correlated with gender-unfriendly infrastructure, such as proximity to infrastructure for banking, electricity etc, and to education and healthcare infrastructure. This is because salaried work mostly requires women to step out of the house, difficult if the infrastructure for it is inadequate. The benefit of self employment is that it provides 'temporal flexibility in terms of when one can work and spatial flexibility in terms of where one can work', said Rosa Abraham, another Assistant Professor at Azim Premji University. In a 2024 study with Vijayamba R, Assistant Professor, NLSIU, and Srinivas Raghavendra, Associate Professor, Azim Premji University, Abraham found that there was a 4.2 minute decrease in time spent on unpaid work, ie, domestic and care work within the household, with one hour of time spent in employment for a rural self-employed woman with 'fairly high' levels of education. In contrast, time spent in unpaid work increased by 6.6 minutes with an hour of salaried work for an urban graduate woman. Abraham said that this could be because urban women in salaried work feel the need to compensate for their absence from home. This could result in them compromising on other activities such as self-care. Besides, women with high levels of education may spend more time in childcare by teaching children at home and helping them with academics after school, she added. Double burden A review of studies, published in 2021, noted that several studies have linked unpaid care work to mental health issues. For instance, they wrote, a systematic review comparing health outcomes of unpaid caregivers and non-care givers from Africa, Asia, and South America found that unpaid caregivers had higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms than non-care givers. Similarly, a study from the US found that inequities in the division of housework and women's disproportionate share contributed substantially to sex differences in depression, the authors noted. A 2024 study by researchers based in the United States and Japan found that an additional hour of caregiving per day reduces the probability of Indian women reporting median level life satisfaction by 26 percentage points and good physical health by 15 percentage points, indicating the adverse impacts of a high double burden on women's health. Policy solutions Public provisioning of domestic and care work is essential to reduce the double burden on women, especially in urban areas, said Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics at Ashoka University. This, she said, must begin with recognition, reduction, and redistribution of invisible work that is undertaken within the household. In urban areas the quality of private healthcare and childcare is highly uneven and inaccessible and thus an improved anganwadi system (which provides nutrition and early education to young children) could help women. Guha added that public policies are largely intended to benefit only rural regions. As a result, she said, health and care infrastructure in urban areas is led by private players who offer better quality infrastructure but exclude a significant chunk of the population who cannot afford these services. Abraham suggested that it might help if public childcare institutions like creches function for longer hours, especially for urban women. Besides, she also mentioned that maternity benefits largely penalise women's work as they are a cost to enterprises. To make it easier for firms to bear the cost, she suggested the government should create a public fund, to which firms also contribute, that can be used to cover maternity benefits for employees.
The Wire
04-07-2025
- Health
- The Wire
India Cannot Eliminate TB Without Addressing the Taboo Hurdle
Mount Abu, Rajasthan: An eight-year-old girl in Delhi was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) and started on treatment at the Shri Madan Lal Khurana Chest Clinic, New Delhi. Two months later, when she went back to school, she faced stigma. 'When she joined back, her class teacher angrily told her to sit separately, in a corner,' Sankalp Yadav, her treating medical officer, told IndiaSpend. 'She wasn't allowed to meet her friends even during recess.' The teacher had got to know of the child's TB status from the medical certificate she had submitted on rejoining. The girl's parents told Yadav that she was depressed. 'Being stigmatised had affected her very badly,' he said. Stigma are negative, often unreasonable beliefs that a person has about anything that cause him or her to react adversely to the subject. Insofar as diseases go, TB is feared globally, which is possibly why many people tend to react negatively when they get to know that a person is infected. Yadav approached the child's class teacher and explained that she was no longer infectious. 'I told her that her pupil had already been on medicine for several weeks and that her sputum had turned negative,' said Yadav. Essentially, the girl was no longer infectious. Yadav's intervention helped the teacher understand that there was no reason to isolate the child at school. After being allowed to mix freely with her classmates, the girl got back her confidence. She went on to complete the treatment and be declared tuberculosis-free. Not every TB patient has someone to help them overcome stigmatisation. Kalika Gupta, associate professor at the Geetanjali Institute of Medical Sciences, Jaipur, has studied how the fear of being stigmatised keeps patients from getting themselves tested even if they have a persistent cough. 'Nine in ten patients with pulmonary TB have cough, and many of them self-medicate with cough syrups but that can at best only temporarily suppress the symptom,' said Gupta. 'All this while, patients spread the disease.' To evaluate the extent of such suppression and hence the missed TB cases--patients who should be receiving treatment but aren't--Gupta studied the private sector sales of cough syrup and TB medicine (rifampicin-based fixed dose combinations) across Rajasthan from January 2021 to March 2024. 'My analysis showed that for every patient receiving treatment in the private sector, seven times as many were not,' said Gupta, who took up this study during the two-year Structured Operational Research Training Initiative (SORT IT) course of the Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR NIE) she is enrolled for, one of 12 mentees nationwide. She was supported by the ICMR NIE, the Central TB Division, the National TB Task Force and WHO India. Gupta is of the opinion that the high missed numbers match the clinical experience of doctors in her hospital. 'At the national level it is being said that India is in the TB elimination phase but our practice shows that TB is still rampant,' she said. 'At the grassroots level, it doesn't look like we are controlling TB, and we are nowhere near eliminating TB by 2025.' Researchers model the TB care cascade to estimate the gaps, as we explained in May 2023. The number of patients with incident TB who did not access TB tests constitute gap 1, patients who did not get diagnosed constitute gap 2, those who did not register for treatment constitute gap 3, those who were not successfully cured comprise gap 4, and those who relapsed or died even after being treated constitute gap 5. Gaps represent patient losses--essentially, patients who fell through the TB care net. In this context, India's most significant gap was gap 1, according to a 2019 study published in PLOS Medicine, that concluded that half of all patient losses in India are individuals with incident TB who didn't access a TB test. Engaging private pharmacies to identify missing patients In line with the aim to eliminate TB in India by 2025, five years ahead of the United Nations' 2030 target, the government under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) has been pushing to boost the notification of cases. Consequently, India notified 2.6 million TB cases in 2024, a record for the country. In Himachal Pradesh, the awareness that many TB cases are still being missed because patients resort to self-prescribing cough syrup has led the government to rope in private pharmacies to plug this gap. 'We've requested private pharmacies to let us know who is repeatedly buying cough syrup, or showing symptoms of tuberculosis, and refer such cases via a portal,' state tuberculosis officer Gopal Beri told IndiaSpend. 'Our TB cell personnel have been able to reach out to about 4,521 presumptive patients through this initiative. But it's challenging because people fear being stigmatised.' 'TB patients hesitate to divulge their personal details to pharmacists and cite privacy concerns,' agreed Pranati Jha, programme officer, Performance Management and Review, PATH, a global health not-for-profit working to improve health equity.. Over in Rajasthan, having quantified the likely missed cases in the private sector, which Gupta describes as 'establishing proof of concept', she is now leading a similar initiative to reach out to missed cases. 'In one district of the state, Jaipur II, we are requesting private chemists to collect the contact numbers and addresses of people buying cough syrup, and training them to conduct on-the-spot sputum tests,' said Gupta. 'Since some patients may be reluctant to undergo a sputum exam, medical officers who are entrusted with the personal data will pass it on to ASHA [accredited social health activists] workers to visit patients' homes to collect sputum samples.' Roping in private pharmacies is seemingly a great idea to take forward the fight against TB. After all, 'pharmacists are one of the first points of contact in the community', said Deepak Balasubramanian, deputy director TB, South Asia, PATH. The snag is, so far private pharmacies haven't been able to keep up with other responsibilities the government has entrusted them with. For instance, they are required by the mandatory TB notification and Schedule H1 to report tuberculosis patients issued anti-TB drugs and maintain information of the prescriber. But in 2022, less than 5% of registered pharmacists were reporting under NTEP, pointed out Jha. In fact, 'stringent regulations have dissuaded many pharmacies to skip stocking TB drugs altogether,' she said. Capturing accurate, timely data of all TB patients, both from the public and the private sectors, in a unified digital platform is vital to understand the distribution of missing patients and introduce focused interventions in those geographic and demographic areas to detect such cases. 'Without comprehensive data, many patients go unrecorded, resulting in gaps in diagnosis and treatment,' said Balasubramanian. Making private pharmacies more responsible A significant hurdle in engaging private pharmacies, according to Jha, is the record-keeping involved in complying with the requirement. Besides, pharmacies are unaware of government incentives for reporting TB patients, a factor that she believed could perhaps have helped turnaround the situation. Private facilities--practitioners, hospitals, nursing homes, laboratories and chemists--reporting TB patients can claim Rs 500 from the government per notification. Even where private pharmacies are aware of what is expected of them, Balasubramanian said a lack of training on maintaining Schedule H1 registers or using the Ni-kshay portal--the government's digital system for TB case notification--is a key barrier to compliance. Training would help change the situation. 'States such as Telangana, Uttar Pradesh where pharmacists have received training by the NTEP, facilitated by State Technical Support Units, on the importance of TB as a public health issue and the need to maintain appropriate records have shown improvement in data collection,' said Balasubramanian. PATH has trained community pharmacists across more than 130 slums in Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune under the Take Charge Against TB programme during the first half of 2025, a public health initiative of Johnson & Johnson to address TB under-diagnosis. Frontline healthcare workers have been made more competent in screening and referral. Ways to eradicate stigmas and build trust in the community have also been addressed. 'Most pharmacists were being trained for the first time, they showed keen interest in spreading awareness of TB and referring TB symptomatic patients to the nearest health facility for testing,' said Balasubramanian. 'In the two months after the training, more than a third of those trained started to screen people from vulnerable communities and refer them for testing.' IndiaSpend has reached out to Urvashi Singh, deputy director general, Tuberculosis, Central TB Division, for the government's plans to plug the gap in data collection by private pharmacies, and expanding the initiative started in Himachal Pradesh, to test habitual cough syrup consumers for TB. We will update this story when we receive a response. Overcoming stigma at a societal level key to winning the fight against TB Training for pharmacists and even frontline workers must extend to ways to address TB stigmas. Not only patients but also their family members and frontline workers interacting with them face stigma. A recent study published in the Indian Journal of Tuberculosis interviewed all these three sets of people and found that one in four had faced stigma. Female patients were 13 times more likely to face stigma, a fact that co-author Vishwas Gupta of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, attributed to women being victimised in every way in a male-dominated society. 'Many families don't want to spend on the health of women, so women who fall sick end up being stigmatised as their being there or not doesn't really matter,' said Gupta. Those with less knowledge of the disease were three times more likely to be stigmatised, which Gupta said could possibly be 'because they cannot defend themselves against people expressing prejudices'. Essentially, they may harbour a greater fear of the social and economic consequences following diagnosis. Experiences of TB patients suggest that so far, training has not brought about the desired change in behaviour and perception in society nor in frontline workers. Akshata Acharya, an actor and a survivor of multidrug resistant tuberculosis, vividly recalls being visited by a government official soon after being diagnosed at the age of 24, in May 2021. 'The officer inspected our home for ventilation and hygiene, and asked where I was likely to spend most of my time,' said Acharya. 'We showed him an isolated space.' Acharya had no cough nor respiratory distress. She had extrapulmonary TB, meaning a swollen lymph node--hers was behind the right ear. So no one was likely to suspect that she had TB. Still, the officer advised her parents not to tell anyone she had TB because it would 'create problems later on'. 'We were taken aback when he said so because no one in my family or close friends circle had reacted strongly when they had gotten to know that I have TB,' said Acharya. In time, others gave her the same advice. 'A few colleagues told me not to openly say that I had TB because no one would want to work with me,' she said. Yadav attested to having seen 'factory hands diagnosed with TB not being allowed to work and elderly patients with the disease being deserted at old-age homes, because people--even family members--fear TB and don't want to have anything to do with patients'. While the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme emphasises the creation of awareness in the community, there appears to be a shortage of people dedicated to changing the negative societal response to TB--both among patients and those around them. Frontline workers under the NTEP include health visitors as well as counsellors but according to Gupta, counsellors are visibly absent. 'In our area, Bhopal, for instance, no counsellor has been appointed,' he said. 'We have tried to raise the issue of insufficient human resources but this has not yielded any positive action so far,' said Gupta. 'We understand that a shortage of funds for operations is the reason for this. Central authorities are receptive to requests for equipment but not for operational assistance. But we need more people to reach out to missing cases.' Acharya has told her story in Eclipsed: Overcoming Disease, Despondency and Doldrum, and continues to create awareness about TB through Survivors Against Tuberculosis, of which she is a member. She wants to inspire conversations on TB. 'You cannot eliminate TB by brushing it under the carpet,' she said. 'Addressing the taboo and rooting out the stigma are essential steps to that end.' Charu Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.
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27-06-2025
- Business
- Scroll.in
How Indians save and borrow
In a decade to 2023-'24, the structure of the financial savings of Indian households has changed. Deposits still hold the lion's share, but instruments such as stocks, small savings and government bonds and provident and pension funds have seen a rise in popularity. Similarly, while banks continue to be the biggest lenders to Indian families, loans from non-banking financial companies saw an increase. Overall, as of March 2024, Indian households had financial assets worth about Rs 320 trillion ($3.7 trillion) and liabilities of Rs 121 trillion ($1.4 trillion). In 2022, IndiaSpend reported on how India's poorest households were increasingly relying on debt to meet everyday expenses, especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The report noted a shift in borrowing patterns: urban poor turning to institutional credit, while rural poor continued to rely on moneylenders. In six charts, we examine how Indian households are saving and borrowing, using data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Reserve Bank of India. In 2022-'23, the latest year for which data has been published by the ministry, Indian households added financial assets worth Rs 29.7 trillion ($340 billion) and liabilities worth Rs 15.6 trillion ($180 billion). With an estimated 294 million households, this means, on average, a family added Rs 1 lakh in financial assets and Rs 53,000 in liabilities that year. Total financial assets, which are reported as gross financial savings in the ministry's data, include household cash, deposits, and other financial investments. Liabilities refer to borrowings from banks and non-bank lenders. The difference between these two figures is the net financial savings for that year. The Reserve Bank of India's preliminary estimates for the year 2023-'24 show that financial assets rose to Rs 34.3 trillion while liabilities stood at Rs 18.8 trillion. That is, liabilities were about 55% of assets – the highest level since at least 1970-'71. As recently as 2021-'22, this figure stood at 34%. Between 2020-'21 and 2022-'23, total financial assets declined 3% from Rs 30.7 trillion to Rs 29.7 trillion, while liabilities more than doubled to Rs 15.6 trillion. Simply put, Indians are saving less and borrowing more. How Indians save Deposits, as we said, remain the most popular mode of savings for Indian households. But over a decade, the share of deposits in financial assets fell from 56% in 2013-'14 to 41% in 2023-'24, our analysis shows. During this period, shares and debentures rose from 2% of financial assets to 9%, as did 'claims on government' – or small savings schemes and government bonds. Similarly, the share of pension and provident funds rose from 15% to 21%. In March, the government said in Lok Sabha that the new tax regime proposed in the Union Budget 2025-'26, which waives income tax for those earning up to Rs 12 lakh, is a reform measure aimed at reducing taxes for the middle class and leaving more money in their hands to boost household savings. Other measures such as support for employment, skill development, and ease of doing business were also cited as efforts to strengthen household finances. However, access to these instruments is not equal across income groups. As IndiaSpend reported in September 2021, many poor households had to dip into their savings to cope with job losses, high healthcare expenses, and rising prices during and after the Covid-19 waves. Rising debt Loans by financial corporations and non-banking companies are rising, the data show, even as bank loans account for the highest share of liabilities added. In the decade to 2022-'23, bank loans fell from 92% of liabilities to 76%, while non-banking financial corporation loans grew from 2% to 21% during the same period. Household debt in India rose over the past three years and stood at 42.9% of the gross domestic product as of June 2024, according to the Reserve Bank's Financial Stability Report 2024, which it said is relatively low compared to other emerging market economies. This rise has been driven more by a growing number of borrowers rather than an increase in average indebtedness, the report added. 'Undeniably, the past four years have witnessed unchecked growth in consumer lending, arguably fueled by overall economic growth,' IndiaSpend founder-editor Govindraj Ethiraj wrote in October 2024. 'However, India is also experiencing levels of borrowing and market speculation that seem disproportionate to other economic indicators.' Net low in five years As Indian families added liabilities faster than assets, as we said above, the net financial savings – or the surplus that households have after accounting for liabilities – fell to Rs 15.5 trillion, down 33% from Rs 23.3 trillion in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, data show. A May 2024 report by CRISIL noted that households have been borrowing at a faster pace than they've been saving since the Covid-19 pandemic. Taken as a percentage of India's gross domestic product, liabilities doubled in the decade to 2023-'24, from 3.2% of the GDP in 2013-'14 to 6.4% in 2023-'24. During the same period, total assets rose from 10.6% of GDP to 11.7%. Net financial savings, therefore, were at their lowest in five decades at 5.3%. With a 'sizeable part' of household credit being used for real estate, 'there has been a compositional shift in total household savings away from financial savings in favour of physical savings', the Reserve Bank noted in January this year. The ministry's data show that Indian households' savings in physical assets rose from Rs 1.5 trillion in 2012-13 to Rs 3.5 trillion in 2022-23. All that glitters Gold and silver continue to be a consistent savings option for Indian households. In 2022-'23, Indian households added Rs 63,397 crore in gold and silver ornaments, 73% more than a decade earlier. That doesn't mean households are buying more gold and silver. During that period, prices of silver rose 21% while gold prices rose 95%, Reserve Bank data collated by Dataful show. An average Indian household holds 84% of its wealth in physical assets, 11% in gold bullion and the residual 5% in financial assets, according to the All India Debt and Investment Survey 2012 by the National Sample Survey Office, as cited in this May 2020 research brief by Dvara Research. Poorer households hold a higher share of their wealth in gold compared to richer households: Households with wealth under Rs 1.79 lakh hold 24% of their wealth in gold whereas the wealthiest segment with wealth above Rs 14.8 lakh hold only 2% of their total wealth in gold.
Scroll.in
17-06-2025
- Scroll.in
India's efforts to rescue bonded labourers undone by delayed rehabilitation
Manoj Kumar Anant and his wife Shakuntala Bai were rescued from bonded labour at a brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar in 2022. He had told IndiaSpend in September 2023 that he was waiting for rehabilitation assistance under the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour, 2021. Two years later Manoj is still waiting for the full rehabilitation assistance, he said, while bedridden in a hospital bed, his left arm paralysed after an accident in March this year. 'The first few weeks after a rescue are critical for released bonded labourers so that they do not slip into rebondage,' said Tina Kuriakose Jacob, senior research fellow, International Institute of Migration and Development. 'The Ministry of Labour's 2016 Rehabilitation Scheme for Bonded Labourers explicitly mentioned financial and non-financial support, so that they do not fall in bondage again.' Manoj's case is not unique. IndiaSpend travelled to Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and found that 10 others – all from the Scheduled Caste Satnami community in the state – who were rescued with Manoj and his wife from the same brick kiln in 2022 were waiting for assistance. They each received Rs 30,000, which is supposed to be an immediate cash assistance, only after two years, and none of them have been rehabilitated as per the central sector scheme, under which cash allocations were revised in 2021. In addition to the immediate cash assistance, the scheme says they should receive a bonded labour release certificate, and between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh based on the level of exploitation, age and gender for their rehabilitation. The scheme also entitles labourers to non-financial rehabilitation, including allotment of a house-site, low cost dwelling units, wage employment, animal husbandry etc. While the certificates, which are issued by the District Magistrate or Sub-Divisional Magistrate, were given to the 11 survivors in March 2022, Rs 30,000 as immediate assistance was transferred only around July 2024. 'I am more than Rs 1 lakh in debt due to the treatment and related requirements,' said Manoj. He has spent Rs 25,000 in a week since his hospital admission in Bilaspur, although some of the treatment is covered under the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme. 'I do not have a ration card and no money has come through since we received Rs 30,000.' Officials in the Bilaspur labour department told IndiaSpend that the remaining amount can be provided only after conviction of the accused because the full rehabilitation amount is linked to conviction according to the rehabilitation scheme. This, experts say, is one of the reasons why the rehabilitation of bonded labourers is held up. India is reported to have at least 11 million people in modern slavery, highest in the world, according to Walk Free's Global Slavery Index 2023. Bonded labour, a form of modern slavery, has been illegal for nearly five decades in India, since the enactment of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. IndiaSpend had reported that the Union government would, at the current rate, miss its objective of rescuing and rehabilitating 18.4 million bonded labourers by 2030, by 98%. According to February 2025 data from the government, 297,038 bonded labourers have been rescued since 1978, with an expenditure of Rs 106.3 crore. 'Caught and locked up' In the morning heat, as road dust and noise from the traffic swirled around, the men and women who were rescued with Manoj congregated in the yard of one of the worker's homes, in the Satnami colony in Silpahari, 10 km from Bilaspur's collectorate. Jyothi Manhar, 28, was concerned about the rehabilitation amount. Jyothi, who has studied till class 9, was one of eight relatives rescued and provided release certificates with Manoj. She, like several others, has built a small home with loans, on land that her family does not own. Many of the workers' houses are unplastered, without basic facilities such as running water. Before the incident in Kushinagar, the survivors and their families had worked in different parts of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. They would get about Rs 600-Rs 700 for every 1,000 bricks made, which would be paid at the end of six months of work. On a weekly basis a family – that is a husband and wife – would be given around Rs 1,500 for their daily needs. This amount would be adjusted against the six-month pay at the end of their stint. In the Kushinagar brick kiln, there were around 20 people, who had migrated with young children. Despite the government promising ration card portability which would help interstate and intrastate migrant workers access food, many are unable to use their cards at their work destinations. According to a December 2024 report by the Centre for Labour Research and Action on 1,012 seasonal migrant brick worker households in Rajasthan and Gujarat, 71% of respondents were aware of the scheme, but only 50% attempted to use it, and among them, just 59% successfully accessed rations. Often the children of seasonal migrant brick kiln workers do not attend school. While unpaid wages have always been a concern at kilns, the experience in Kushinagar had terrified the workers. Their ordeal began when the woman contractor – a relative of the labourers – fled with around Rs 5 lakh given by the brick kiln owner for labour payments in late 2021. The 11 of them had started work after Diwali, which is usually the practice, and worked for nearly two months into the winter, when the incident happened, the workers said. The owner was unconcerned that the contractor had cheated them of their wages, and said that the workers would now continue at the rate of about Rs 300 for 1,000 bricks, which was less than half the agreed wage. 'We tried to run away, but we were caught and locked up,' said Jyothi, who occasionally broke into Chhattisgarhi as she recalled their days in captivity. She had started working in brick kilns after her marriage to Binod Kumar, who was part of the group. The survivors said that nearly 20 of them, along with their children, were locked up in a room for about two weeks and allowed out in the morning to work or to go to the field to defecate. The women workers said that the watchmen would follow the women when they went to the field to defecate to ensure that they would not run away. It was humiliating, they said. 'We are scared to go outside the state and work in brick kilns again,' said Jyothi. 'They wanted to make sure that we did not run away and took our phones. We ate and had to urinate in the same locked room,' said Jyothi. Her sister-in-law, Ishwari Bai, was pregnant and had delivered her daughter in Kushinagar only a few weeks before the ordeal began. Ishwari, who has never attended school and had traveled with her parents to brick kilns since she was a child, said that the owner and his nephew were verbally abusive and even threatened to hit the women. 'I delivered in December and was given Rs 4,000 for medicine. It was a terrible experience,' said Ishwari Bai, whose daughter still does not have a birth certificate. 'In Chhattisgarh at least we know people. The entire system is theirs [employers'] in UP,' said Amrit Bai, Ishwari's mother-in-law, one of the others rescued. After two weeks, they were allowed to go back to their own rooms, but were kept under close supervision and paid reduced wages. Manoj, whose finger was broken during the violence by the owner, managed to hide a small mobile phone which he used to contact nonprofits and officials, following which they were rescued nearly a month into their captivity. They did not receive any wages for the work at the brick kiln. In all, 'we were given Rs 25,000 [by the DM/district officials] to get train tickets, food etc, and return to Bilaspur,' said Manoj. This amount was money that was taken from the brick kiln owner, Anil Singh, and not the 'immediate relief' which, as we said, was credited more than two years later. IndiaSpend had reported that the survivors, since their return, had made multiple visits to district officials to obtain their rehabilitation entitlements According to the Bilaspur labour department, release certificates of 11 workers – seven women and four men – have been filed. The rest of the money will be transferred only after the case ends with a conviction. Manoj claimed that he was informed by a social activist over a year ago that the abuser had been convicted. IndiaSpend has not been able to confirm this independently and the Bilaspur labour department says they do not have information about it. IndiaSpend has written and followed up with Kushinagar district collector's office on the status of the case and related information, including immediate cash assistance delays, and have copied the Uttar Pradesh labour department and chief secretary in the email. We will update the story when we receive a response. 'Delays happen because there is no conviction for a case,' said Jyothi Sharma, assistant labour commissioner in Bilaspur. 'We do reach out about cases with the concerned district for updates. We have sent four or five reminders to Kushinagar since 2022,' she claimed. Between 2000 and 2023, there have been more than 2,200 bonded labourers reported in Bilaspur district, according to information shared by the labour department. In seven years to 2023, 27 cases including 402 workers in bondage were reported in which there have been only two convictions. The central sector scheme provides Rs 4.5 lakh for a survey to identify bonded labourers in sensitive districts every three years and up to five evaluatory studies a year for the eradication of bonded labour. While a study was conducted three years ago, no bonded labourers were identified in Bilaspur, said the labour department. Nikhil and Nihal Dheeraj, minors at that time, were part of the group that had gone to the Kushinagar brick kiln, with an older brother and mother, Mamta. While their eldest brother Kunal was issued a release certificate, Nikhil and Nihal were not. 'I was also working with adults making around 400 bricks a day,' said 17-year-old Nikhil who has not completed class 10. While other friends are studying, he works. He plans to start working in nearby coal plants and factories on a daily wage of around Rs 300-350 like the others in the group. 'Studying is an additional expense. I can contribute to the family if I work.' He said that no one from the administration spoke to him when they were rescued. 'There is no mention of age in the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. They [officials] confuse them with child labour when they are bonded,' said Nirmal Gorana, the convener of the National Campaign Committee for Eradication of Bonded Labour, a national-level network for identification, rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked bonded labourers. 'If children are involved various provisions get invoked which means more work for the labour department.' More than four decades earlier, in 1982, the labour ministry had issued a blueprint with 15 components for the rehabilitation of bonded labourers, which included enforcement of minimum wages, dwelling units, psychological rehabilitation, skill training, allotment of housing sites and agricultural land, health, medical care and sanitation, education of children etc. The total subsidy per released bonded labourer at the time was Rs 4,000 and Rs 25 lakh was the outlay by the Planning Commission for 1980-'85 period. Rehabilitation process The Standard Operating Procedure for Identification and Rescue of Bonded Labourer and Prosecution states that the summary trial in bonded labour cases should commence within 24 hours of the rescue or identification, even if an FIR is not filed. The case should be completed within three months. While the initial bonded labour enquiry by the district authorities is an assessment to know if there is bondage, the summary trial finds evidence to convict the accused employer. Once the release certificates are issued by the district or sub-divisional magistrate, it is assumed that there is an offense of bondage and the burden of proof to prove otherwise falls on the accused employer. The eradication of bonded labour has three aspects – rescue, prosecution and rehabilitation, said David Sundar Singh, panel advocate at the Madras High Court Legal Services Committee, who has worked on multiple bonded labour cases in Tamil Nadu. 'The rehabilitation rests with the central sector scheme, although labour issues like bondage crimes are under the state's purview. The scheme is only a guiding document,' he said. But the implementation of summary trials varies by state. According to Section 21 of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, states may confer, on an executive magistrate, the powers of a judicial magistrate of the first class or of the second class for the trial of offences. This means that district executive heads may be allowed to deal with a judicial function that they may not be trained to perform. It also contravenes Article 50 of the Constitution that ensures the separation of judiciary from the executive functions. Jacob of the International Institute of Migration and Development said that although the labour ministry's scheme and the SOP mention that the district magistrate can conduct summary trials, there is a need to know the conclusion of such trials, and if district magistrates are trained to conduct it. The process of summary trial is not without concerns, highlighted by D Murugesan, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, in a 2018 National Human Rights Commission handbook on bonded labour. 'It is the only Legislation where an Executive Magistrate has been empowered with the powers of a Judicial Magistrate First Class to hold the Summary Trial but the country has seen very few Summary Trials conducted by the District Magistrates or their subordinate officers since they are not aware of the procedure to conduct the Summary Trial,' wrote Murugesan. The Madras High Court had struck down the clause saying that revenue divisional officers in the state will not have the powers of a judicial magistrate to conduct trial under the Act. Presently, the Union government-supported rehabilitation scheme says that in cases where the summary trial has not been concluded, but the district magistrate or sub-divisional magistrate has arrived at a prima facie finding and proof of bondage, the proposal for cash assistance shall not be stopped for want of details of conviction. But, final disbursement of cash assistance is to be made after proof of bondage and other legal consequences as per the judicial process. 'Rescued bonded labourers, particularly inter-state workers, usually do not know if they have won the case…The full compensation is given only after conviction. Rehabilitation has been linked to it, which is a problem,' said Gorana. 'But the DM has discretion when it comes to compensation,' and can approve an amount higher than the immediate cash assistance of Rs 30,000. Linking rehabilitation to conviction, said Singh of the Madras High Court Legal Services Committee, 'is a violation because if there is an acquittal, the prosecution has failed. The victims cannot be punished for it.' The problem of linking of conviction creating rehabilitation delays has been highlighted by the National Human Rights Commission too. A 2021 advisory said that efforts should be made to 'delink dependency' of rehabilitation on conviction in criminal cases. 'Once bonded labour is freed, he should be compensated and rehabilitated,' said the advisory. There has to be an emphasis on training and sensitising district administration, said Jacob, and there should be improvements in reporting, fund utilisation and transparency. 'The states are required to send the release certificates to the Union government to receive reimbursement of funds used for rehabilitation of bonded labourers, but we do not know how many are able to do that manually when there are no digital platforms,' she added. According to the March 2025 Lok Sabha Standing Committee On Labour, Textiles And Skill Development report, the labour ministry said that the status of the summary trial or conviction is available with them from states 'only at the time of the submissions of their proposal for availing final rehabilitation assistance.' If there are only a few convictions, which are required for final proposals to be sent to the Union governments, it is unlikely that there is collated information or data on conclusion of summary trials. In the case of Manoj and others, there has been no information on the conviction, said assistant labour commissioner, Sharma. 'When the employer or in this case the brick kiln owner is convicted by the court and we receive formal intimation, then we [will] send a proposal to the Union government [under the scheme], and the appropriate amount is transferred.' IndiaSpend spoke to Alankrita Upadhyay, the labour commissioner in Kushinagar. She said that she would check the status of the case. We will update the story when we receive more information. Not enough data When IndiaSpend reported on the rate of rescue and rehabilitation of bonded laborers in October 2023, the government had said that it had released 315,302 people since 1978 and 94% (296,305) of them were rehabilitated. According to the March 2025 Standing Committee report, since 1978, 297,038 bonded labourers have been rescued. The difference in the numbers (18,264) could be because of the difference in the use of 'rescued' and 'rehabilitated', an official from the labour ministry who did not want to be identified said, without giving more details. One of the reasons for rescuing bonded labourers at a rate slower than what is needed to rescue 18.4 million bonded labourers by 2030, was that the Union government said that scheme was demand-driven and that the target cannot be fixed. As in previous years, the ministry reiterated in the 2025 report that the scheme is 'demand driven in nature where funds are provided to the States/UTs on receipt of financial demand from them'. As on January 31, 2025, only 6% of the budgeted Rs 6 crore for the rehabilitation scheme has been used and 246 labourers had been rehabilitated in 2024-'25. They were all reported from Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, with the latter reporting 196 rehabilitated bonded labourers. But based on the labour and employment ministry's 2024-'25 annual report, between April and December 2024, the scheme had only three beneficiaries who were given Rs 60,000 in all. Similarly the 2022-'23 annual report showed that between April and November 2022, there were no beneficiaries, which contradicted the Lok Sabha Standing Committee report which shows that 673 bonded laborers were rehabilitated during that financial year. According to the 2025 standing committee report, the proposals from the states/UTs for the 246 bonded labourers for the financial year of 2024-'25 were related to the payment of immediate cash assistance only. It also said that conviction and summary trial information had not been provided by Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. For immediate cash assistance of Rs 30,000 released for 246 labourers, the total should be Rs 73.8 lakh versus the Rs 35 lakh that the report mentions. An official in the labour ministry, who did not want to be identified, clarified that the states send proposals from different years together including those before 2021 scheme revisions, which means that the immediate cash assistance would be Rs 20,000 instead of Rs 30,000. The data are recorded for the year of fund disbursement. It was for the same reason that the data in the annual report differs and that rehabilitation and rescue as a nomenclature were being used interchangeably. As per ministry's data on June 2, they had expended Rs 67.4 lakh in 2024-'25. While the standing committee found the ' persistent decrease ' in bonded labour in the three years to 2024-'25 'encouraging', it was concerned about the existence of the problem despite its abolition. It urged states to tackle bonded labour through stricter penalties and punishment, fast-tack courts, and improved awareness among workers. It also underscored the need to provide better rehabilitation through secure rehabilitation homes/centres, counseling and emotional support, immediate medical assistance, free legal aid, and provide rescued children access to formal education and financial support. In 2020, 2,837 victims were reported under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act in the National Crime Record Bureau data. Of these, 43% were members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. While in the next year the number of victims fell to 667, by 2022, it had increased 140% to 1,600 victims where 86% were SC/ST. More than three in four of all victims were reported in Uttar Pradesh. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act data in the National Crime Records Bureau NCRB are much higher than reported by the Parliament committee with respect to rehabilitation. Bonded labour is reported by both the labour and home ministries depending on the case and basis of reporting, said Jacob. 'The DM can do a summary trial if it is a BLSA complaint, without an FIR. If an FIR is filed by the police, it is reported by NCRB. There is no clarity or reporting on summary trials in BLSA,' she said. There was initially a labour ministry proposal to create a National Portal on Bonded Labour. But, according to the December 2024 Parliament standing committee report, the ministry subsequently said the portal will be a comprehensive, unified portal for Child Labour, Bonded Labour and Women Labour, and that it should be functional in a year. The same report also noted the high unspent balance in the rehabilitation scheme due to 'non-receipt of documents and utilisation certificates.' The Committee asked the ministry to 'strengthen their monitoring and coordination mechanism for optimal utilisation of funds and reduce surrender of allocated funds to the minimum extent possible.' IndiaSpend has written to the labour ministry for comments on delays in rehabilitation, unspent funds, data gaps and monitoring of the scheme. We will update the story when we receive a response. Meanwhile, Manoj, who is worried about the rising hospitalisation cost, demands he be given the full rehabilitation amount, land, a Below Poverty Line ration card.
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29-05-2025
- Climate
- Scroll.in
Summer of weather disruptions: Early showers in May wreck crops, flood cities across India
In a year when India braced for blistering heat waves, May 2025 unleashed unprecedented rainfall activity, catching the country off guard with almost double, or 85.7% more, the rainfall than usual. In fact, central India has seen five times the usual rainfall this month (by May 27) and south India crossed the 2.5 times mark. The south-west monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 24, eight days earlier than usual and the earliest onset since 2009. Most parts of the country had been reeling under heat waves in March and April, and the expectation was that it would get worse in May. In the event, most parts of the country did not see any significant or prolonged heat waves. Instead, there were widespread thunderstorms, even hailstorms, which brought down maximum temperatures and spared India a scorching May. However, the unseasonal downpours led to massive crop losses in states such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana, Gujarat and elsewhere. Now, as the country gears up for Kharif sowing, will May rains affect or decrease the spell of southwest monsoon in any way? Director General of the India Meteorological Department M Mohapatra answered in the negative and told IndiaSpend, 'Long range, seasonal rainfall is not dependent on May rainfall. There is no 1:1 relationship.' The department has forecast an ' above normal ' monsoon season this year. In a press conference on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department forecast that monsoon will be particularly above normal over southern and central India, normal over northwest India, and below normal over northeast India. The month of June in fact has a forecast of 8% above normal rainfall (both forecasts with a margin of error of 4%). But there are bound to be variations. Even last year, while India's monsoon ended on a 6% surplus, there were large variations within regions and in between months. Within the monsoon months, there were variations in rainfall received, oscillating between deficit rain and surplus. Parts of Northeast India, Punjab, Bihar had seen deficient rainfall while Gujarat and Rajasthan saw surplus rainfall. Heatwave to thunderstorms At the beginning of May, the India Meteorological Department had forecast hotter days and nights, and above-normal heatwave days in northwest, central and east India this month. While it had also forecast rainfall over the country as a whole to be above normal (or 9% more) of the 'long period average', so far, India's monthly rainfall stands at 85.7% above normal instead (Data up to May 27). It started in the very first week of May when many parts of the country started seeing widespread rainfall. There was a prolonged wet spell with moderate to severe thunderstorms, squally or gusty winds over northwest, central and eastern India. Heavy rainfall was recorded in parts of east Rajasthan, west Madhya Pradesh, Saurashtra & Kachchh on May 7 alone. That week had registered 35% more rainfall than was expected at this time of the year. The wet spell did not stop there. In the second week also, India saw 20% more rain than usual, so much so that there was no heat wave recorded. An important feature of this May's weather has been the presence of gusty winds, hailstorms, thunderstorms with lightning, and dust storms. On ground, the unexpected arrival of these weather events led to chaos and disruption. On May 20, Bengaluru city was lashed by heavy rain that killed three. Similar heavy rains were reported in Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and many other regions of India. In Maharashtra, there has been widespread rainfall in Marathwada, Vidarbha and Konkan areas that are typically heatwave prone. On May 2, Delhi recorded its second highest 24-hour May rainfall since 1901, killing four. Delhi also reported dust storms on May 21, and on May 25, downpour led to a portion of the canopy to collapse at the airport. May 7 was recorded as Mumbai's second-wettest day in a decade, and the city is seeing its wettest May ever this year. Together, these extreme weather events have led to flight and train cancellations, traffic chaos, school closures, office disruptions and general disruption of normal life. These disruptions hit daily wage workers, small vendors, and local businesses the hardest, with many struggling to recover from days of halted operations and damaged infrastructure. The extent and severity of the weather activity is reflected in the data. Central India has recorded five times its usual May rainfall (402% above normal) and south India has recorded more than two-and-a-half times the typical amount (165% above normal). Even Northwest India has recorded 24.7% more rainfall. So, while March and April rainfall stood at the deficient mark, May rainfall so far stands at a surplus of 85.7% (all figures up to May 27). Together, the pre-monsoon season, which is March 1 to May 31 of a given year, now stands at a 28.3% surplus. Parts of northeast India, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh have however seen deficient pre-monsoon rainfall this year (March to May). Meanwhile, the Saurashtra and Kachchh region has seen 17 times the normal rainfall; the Gujarat subdivision has seen nearly 12 times; Konkan and Goa 19 times, and Vidarbha four times the normal rainfall this pre-monsoon season. Raghu Murtugudde, retired professor at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and emeritus professor, University of Maryland, said that the current thunderstorms (in May) are mostly due to the winds over the Arabian Sea meeting the winds from the Bay of Bengal, which is happening over peninsular and eastern India. 'That is firing up some rainfall events. Yes, it's unusual for a pre-monsoon period. But we have had unusual sea surface temperature patterns in the tropical Pacific since 2023,' he said. M Mohapatra, the director general of IMD, called the May rainfall as 'not such a regular occurrence'. 'Frequency of western disturbances has been higher this year. Consecutive WDs have brought all this rainfall activity, thunderstorms, hailstorm, fall in temperature etc. The more southern latitude echoes of these WDs also help incursion of moisture from Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. So that has caused this type of activity. It is a big country, there cannot be only one factor,' said Mohapatra. When asked about the accuracy of IMD's forecast for May, Mohapatra noted that the IMD had forecast above normal rainfall activity for the month of May. 'We gave spatial map which showed most parts of India to have above normal rainfall. Yes, we had forecast heatwaves, but that did not occur much.' In a press conference on Tuesday, Mohapatra stated that the month of May saw five to seven western disturbances develop, become active and extend up to Central India. This was the primary reason behind thunderstorms in many parts of India, which in turn brought down temperatures. Farmers hit The southwest monsoon – when it is on time – is the lifeblood of Indian agriculture, supporting over 50% of the country's farmland and contributing significantly to the economy through the Kharif crop season. This year, unseasonal rains in May have caused widespread crop losses in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and many other regions. 'It would usually not rain so much in May. We had a good crop this time around. But the weather got adverse. My banana trees already had fruits on them and they could not bear the impact of thunder and rain. It is all in God's hands now,' said farmer Govind Kushwaha from Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Kushwaha had planted bananas on one acre of land. Half his trees have fallen due to the unseasonal rain on May 22. His fruits are now impacted – the harvest will be less than expected, and quality of what remains will be compromised due to exposure to the rains, resulting in poor demand or low prices in the market. Mango farmers are also badly hit in Uttar Pradesh. Awadh Mango Producers Bagwani Samiti Malihabad general secretary Upendra Singh said that farmers who had protected their mangoes using a technique called bagging (putting a net mesh over the fruit) managed to save their crop, but those who had not taken that precaution are facing heavy losses. 'This kind of weather is not good for horticulturalists. Thunderstorms have led to large scale losses in Lucknow, Meerut, Saharanpur, Aligarh, Jhansi and many parts of Western UP. These mangoes that have prematurely fallen have been damaged and will find no takers,' said Singh. Western disturbances Owing to India's sheer size, the unusual rainfall activity in May cannot be attributed to one weather phenomenon alone. Multiple meteorological factors such as western disturbances, upper air cyclonic circulations, troughs and deep depressions, interaction of winds from the west and east are all contributing factors. Western disturbances are storms that predominantly affect North India and Pakistan during winters. This year, these storms picked up from late January onwards. Western disturbances travel across the year but in different latitudes. They travel in lower latitudes during winters bringing significant amounts of rain and snow over North India. Meanwhile, in summers, these weather systems tend to travel in higher latitudes, confining snow and rainfall activities to the higher reaches of the region, according to research put together by Delhi-based think-tank Climate Trends. However, climate change might be changing the very nature of these Western disturbances. For example, Western disturbances dumped a lot of rainfall over western Himalayas in April. KJ Ramesh, Former Director General of Meteorology, IMD had said in April, 'Global warming has led to rapid warming of the Arabian Sea, which then emits more moisture northwards. Now, when the amplitude of Western Disturbances extends up to the North Arabian Sea, more moisture is fed into the system, resulting in intense weather activity over the hills.' Scientists have warned of an increasingly erratic trend in Western Disturbances amid global warming. AP Dimri, Director, Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, said that increasing heat stress has also altered characteristics of Western Disturbances. 'Growing evidence shows that Western Disturbances are impacting weather outside the winter season, leading to extreme precipitation events. There is no doubt that increasing heat stress is the basis of everything, as it is generating more energy and at the same time pushing moisture upwards,' said Dimri. These shifting weather patterns align with broader climate change trends, where rising global temperatures are intensifying extreme weather events, from unseasonal rains to altered storm cycles, posing new challenges for India's climate resilience.
