In Tamil Nadu, govt promised jobs for land, then forgot all about it

For a 15-year-old M Saravanamuthu living in Anandavadi village of Ariyalur district, an acre of land was both a playfield and workspace. This was in 1984. He would run around with friends on the land his family possessed when the crops had been harvested. Between the sowing and harvesting seasons, he would join his parents, younger brother and elder sister, in the hard work a patch of land demands to allow crops to grow.

Now 53, Saravanamuthu is a farm labourer in his own village having been dispossessed of his family land on the promise of a better future. Life for Saravanamuthu’s family changed when the then Tamil Nadu government decided to set up a cement factory in Ariyalur district. About 1,068 acres of land from Anandavadi village was acquired by the state government at Rs 2,300 per acre and the promise of a job for at least one person from the family at the cement factory.

“I was too young to oppose it. Since my parents had to marry my sister off, they gave up the land for a meagre amount with the hope that someone from the family would get a job at the government cement factory. It’s been 38 years since they [government] acquired the land, but none of us from the family got any job,” Saravanamuthu says.

“All we got in 1984 was Rs 2,300. My family agreed to accept the paltry amount for the land because they were hopeful the promised job would offer a steady, assured income. Had we not believed the government, we would have had our land today and wouldn’t have had to work as labourers.”

Saravanamuthu finds the money from his work barely enough to meet the family’s expenses. Given that farm work is seasonal, there are months when Saravanamuthu finds himself sitting idle with no work and no money.

“I have three daughters and one son. I managed to admit them to professional colleges by pledging all the gold that we had against bank loans in the hope that they would get a job in the factory. So, I lost even the family gold in the hope of the promised job. Two of my daughters are married and one is working in Haryana’s Gurugram,” Saravanamuthu says, adding that they survive on the money the third daughter, a civil engineer who earns Rs 14,500 a month, manages to send from Gurugram and the daily wage he gets working on other people’s farmland.

The factory doesn’t just remind the residents of Anandavadi of broken promises but has also made it difficult for them to live in the village.

After the cement factory came up and mining started in the village, villagers say, the groundwater started depleting rapidly and the village found itself enveloped in a blanket of dust and other pollutants emanating from the factory.

“We still chose to stay amid the pollution in the hope that someday one of our family members would get a government job,” shares Sengamuthu, a 50-year-old villager, whose family also gave their land for the cement factory in 1984.

“I did all I could to get a job for my son. But even as we wait for the elusive jobs, we have to find ways to survive. So, my son now works in a hotel in Chennai for Rs 350 per day and I am working in a farm here. The money is barely enough to meet daily expenses. If he gets the job, we will be able to save a little and marry our daughter off,” Sengamuthu adds.

Assured that government jobs would come up, many in the village pursued engineering. Some got professional diplomas with their mainstream being civil engineering, chemical engineering and diploma in instrumentation to meet the requirements the factory may throw up. They have stayed back in the village despite their professional degrees because they cannot leave their parents behind.

“My parents have been in the village for generations and they don’t want to leave the village even if I want to take them with me. So, I pursued a course with which I can get a decent job at the cement factory and take care of my family. That’s the reason why I was asked to choose chemical engineering and it’s been 10 years since I completed the course. All I have been doing is odd jobs in nearby districts to eke out a living,” says 31-year-old Anandakumar.

Of the 180 families whose land was acquired for the government cement factory, over 100 have at least one graduate with different specialisations who could be employed at the cement factory.

In order to join forces and press for their demands to be met, the villagers came together under an umbrella body – Association of People. M Periyasamy, the president of the association, says over the years they have met everyone in different governments but no help has come their way.

“We have met at least four chief ministers, 10 collectors and several ministers and government officers with regard to our demands but there seems to be no hope – only promises,” he says.

Only 17 of the 181 families, villagers say, got the promised jobs. The rest have found themselves facing an endless wait.

The authorities running the factory say they are aware of the people’s grievances but they recruit only on government orders. A managerial employee at Ariyalur Government Cement Factory, who spoke on condition of anonymity, tells The Federal that the factory has recruited 30 villagers so far.

“Of the 30 people, 17 are permanent and the rest are temporary. Whenever we have a vacancy, we apprise the government of the requirement. When the government approves, we open the position for all eligible candidates. Only if we get specific instructions to recruit people from the families of those who sold their land, we will add the requirement in the notification,” the manager says, adding that the number of vacancies is also low. So, accommodating all those demanding jobs is not possible.

The plight of the villagers of Anandavadi is shared by the people of at least 44 villages in Cuddalore district.

Neyveli Lignite Corporation, a coal mining company owned by the Union government, had acquired 36,000 acres of land in 1956 from people in 44 villages in Cuddalore offering money apart from the promise of a government job for one member of each family.

“Over six decades later, the heirs of the people who sold land to NLC are still struggling to get a job. The government and the company are silent even as the people are struggling every day. The state government should intervene and ensure jobs and proper compensation for those who sold their land to NLC,” says A Arunmozhithevan, AIADMK MLA from Cuddalore’s Bhuvanagiri constituency.

Asked why the AIADMK could not fulfil the promise of jobs when it was in power, Arunmozhithevan says they held several rounds of talks with NLC. “We have even submitted our representation to the Union government on behalf of the state government, when we were in power.”

After a group of people moved the Supreme Court seeking proper compensation and jobs at NLC, the Supreme Court directed the company to give at least 50 per cent of the non-technical jobs to the people who gave land to the company.

“The order is yet to be implemented. It’s not my struggle alone. It has been the struggle of two generations. I am 45 year old and don’t think I can get a job at NLC anymore. I just hope at least my son gets a job in the unit and leads a better life,” says A Gurumoorthy of Gangeikottai, whose family sold their land to the company.

Several people The Federal spoke to in the 44 villages across Cuddalore complained of health issues, including asthma.

“There are two thermal power plants. They function almost round-the-clock and because of that the air quality in the locality has deteriorated. A large number of people have different health issues and a large number of people leave the village every year as they can’t live amid the pollution,” says Krishnaveni, a resident of Adanur village.

After the issue was raised in the Tamil Nadu assembly on May 5, Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote a letter to NLC to give preference in jobs to those who gave their land for the industry.

Asked about the Chief Minister’s order, a NLC spokesperson, wanting to remain anonymous for the story, says the recruitments are happening as per standard procedure and refuses to comment any further.

It’s not just the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) that are sitting on land acquired at throwaway prices from the poor without fulfilling the promise of jobs to land owners. Private companies set up in industrial parks have also failed to give jobs to the landowners in defiance of promises made at the time of acquiring the land.

In 1968, around 358 acres of land was acquired from 164 families of Athilathur village of Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu at Rs 1,000 per acre. The villagers were also promised a job to one person from each family once the company was established.

“Although the company was established within a couple of years, it took us two decades to even get a temporary job. As many as 82 people got jobs in 1987 and another 82 in 1997. However, everybody was hired on contractual basis and retrenched after five years,” says H Ismail, a 53-year-old mechanic, who got a job for the land given by his grandfather.

“All of us were struggling to get a job in those private companies set up on our land as promised by the government. We believed the government since the land was first acquired by the government and then it was handed over to the private sector. Over the years, everybody lost hope in the struggle. Now only 20 of us are left in the battle for our right,” says Ismail.

In response to why private sector conpanies were not ready to accommodate the people from nearby areas in the industrial parks, M Saravanan, former human resource manager at a company in an industrial park in Tiruvallur district, tells The Federal this was to prevent chances of unionisation.

“The company feels if people are employed from different regions and from faraway places, they mostly don’t get a chance to come together and form unions. As far as the land givers are concerned, they already have an association and if they are taken in, they can easily form a union. This is why companies are reluctant to recruit so many people from the same locality,” Saravanan says.

While the promise of giving a job to one person in the family was mostly an oral assurance made by the then district collectors and ministers, in the case of the Tamil Nadu Government cement factory in Anandavadi, the Government’s Order itself clearly stated that one member from each family would be given a job .

Trade unions have been demanding the formation of a government committee to resolve all such grievances across the state as there is at least one such issue in every district of the state.

“However small the land may be, the land owners should be compensated for the loss of their livelihood. Money alone cannot compensate for it. The paltry money given to them for their land is something they can earn from their land in a few years. The loss of livelihood becomes permanent when land is taken away from them,” says K Ravi, Tamil Nadu deputy general secretary of All India Trade Union Congress. Giving the promised jobs, he adds, alone would do justice to the people who gave land to the PSUs as well as private sectors.

Meanwhile, after ignoring the people’s voice for years, Tamil Nadu’s Labour and Employment department has now promised to look into the matter. Minister CV Ganesan has promised to personally visit every place and sort out the problem by holding talks with the industries and the people concerned.

That’s the new big promise the people are now pinning their hopes on. “Only God knows if there will be some light at the end of the tunnel this time around. All we can do is wait,” says Saravanamuthu.