Among victims are Bihar labourers who had job guarantee cards but no job

These four Kamal Das (35), Raghubar Das (19), Pramod Das (36) and Babban Das (30), all extremely backward caste (EBC) members, had another important thing in common. They all had job cards but got no work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) and left for Assam after months of waiting.

They were not the only ones. Around 30 labourers from Sangrampur village in Vaishali district — incidentally, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh also comes from here — had gone to Assam in October last year to work in brick kilns in Tinsukia and Silchar. Although some of them had visited Assam earlier, too, most of them were first-timers looking for employment since none was available in the village.

“This was the first time my husband went out. There was no work here to feed the families. The contractor came and assured good wages in Assam and so he left,” says Gaya Devi, wife of Kamal Das. The mother of four daughters and one son is down with tuberculosis. She weeps inconsolably asking everyone how will she feed her children now.

Similar are the stories of not only the other three who were killed but also several of those who left for Assam last year. Their relatives show job cards, all of which were issued between March to May last year but were of little use: no work was available under the Central scheme which ensures a minimum of 100 days work in a year.

Local villagers said that under the NREG, only one project has been completed in the panchayat, that of filling soil in the compound of the local school, just over a month ago. “For eight days we got employment. But so far we have been paid only Rs 50 each, the rest of the amount is due”, said Ashok Das. Under the scheme here, a labourer is to be paid Rs 68 for a day’s work.

When contacted, Upendra Thakur, the husband of Mukhiya Sita Devi, denies that the men left the village because of no work under the NREG. “They go to Assam not because there is no work here but for greed of money as they get better wages there”, said Thakur. He, however, admitted that all work under the NREG was taken up only two months ago after the labourers who had been waiting for a job had left the state.

Incidentally, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has written a letter to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on what he has called the “unsatisfactory implementation” of the NREG. The state Government so far has also failed to finalise the list of Below Poverty Line families.