Thousands of rural sand workers took out a rally on 8 January 2016 in Dadi block of Hazaribagh district. They were raising slogans: ‘Give the sand bank royalty to the land owners’; ‘Give work for every worker’; ‘End willful royalty from sand banks’; and ‘Include sand workers in the BPL list.’ The rally reached the BDO’s office where a public meeting was held. Men and women attended the rally with traditional weapons, belchas and kodis. Tongi panchayat in Dadi block falls in the Pathari region, not suitable for agriculture, with a majority of adivasi population. Earlier, people used work in limestone quarries, but they are completely closed now. The second alternative for livelihoods for men as well as women was to work as sand lifters from the banks on the Damodar river, which since last year has been given to big contractors from Mumbai by the Jharkhand government. Under the banner of the CPI(ML), the rural workers have been demanding that the work on the sand banks should be given under the control of the local village panchayats. After the sand banks were auctioned off to the contractors, the latter are extracting tax arbitrarily as per their whims instead of following the norms fixed by the government. In comparison to other banks of the Damodar river such as Patratu and Barkakana, the contractor is charging Rs. 500 per truck more, with the result that the number of trucks here is very less. This situation has created a grave crisis of livelihood for the workers, to which the government and the administration are paying no attention.
Addressing the meeting, CPI(ML) district Secretary Com. Bhuneshwar Bediya said that the State BJP government had come into power with the promise of adopting localized policies and creating jobs, but in the last year it has nothing to show except broken promises and a series of anti-people policies. It has totally neglected people’s basic needs, conservation of water, forest and land, and the task of employment generation. Instead, the government has formed a land bank to facilitate handing over of water, forests and lands to corporate houses and private companies. The government is giving the common people polluted air and polluted rivers in order to benefit the corporate houses and companies; land and minerals are being looted.
