From bonded labour to ownership, the 11 Sahariya tribal families settled at this government quarry just 10 km from Shivpuri have come a long way in the past one year. While an NGO helped free them from a stone quarry, the Shivpuri administration gave them the lease rights to a 70-bigha quarry.The results have been impressive so far and the administration is thinking of pulling in more tribal groups with NGO backing. ‘‘We are getting more royalty than ever before. I am on the lookout for more groups of tribals with an NGO’s guiding hand. I had earlier invited SC/ST samitis to run quarries but thekedars (contractors) set up benami committees and there are at least 20 such which failed. In this case, NGO Bandhua Mukti Morcha (BMM) was involved from the beginning and it worked,’’ says Shivpuri Collector V.L. Kanta Rao.Siddharth, their mukhiya, initiated the release. He had been a bonded labour in Vidisha and after an unsuccessful rehabilitation effort, he and his wife Shyama Bai found themselves working again as bonded labour at a quarry in Chaunra, in Gwalior district.But their case was an exception and that of someone like Bhagwati the norm. Bhagwati had been a bonded labour for 20 years. ‘‘We started work as ordinary labourers. But we barely made enough. When our children fell ill we were given a parchi to go meet a doctor. We became bandhuas (bonded labourers),’’ she says.Siddharth’s earlier release had been through the BMM so on July 5 last year he boarded a train to Delhi to meet Swami Agnivesh, the man behind the NGO. On July 9, the administration pitched in and 16 families were freed.But it wasn’t as if that was the end of the problems. Says BMM state coordinator Jaiprasad: ‘‘It took months of consistent pressure on the administration to ensure that work began on their rehabilitation. We wanted this done in Shivpuri as it has the maximum number of bonded labour — over 15,000 — in the state in the numerous stone quarries.’’The Shivpuri collector was responsive and the idea of letting the tribals carry on with work that they were already familiar with took shape, except that they would be working for themselves. ‘‘We put together 15 or 16 different schemes for them. A school is coming up near the quarry, quarters are being constructed for them and each family has been given a patta of agricultural land.’’In an area like Shivpuri, where most quarries are under the control of a few families, the initiative was not welcome. ‘‘After a while, contractors started refusing to pick up the stones they had quarried. So now the families have been given a tractor and a trolley as well,’’ says Jaiprasad.The families work the quarry individually, each getting revenue for the amount of stone quarried, but certain expenses, such as diesel for the tractor, are shared equally. They have also decided to use the revenue in common, such as their share of the royalty, for social events like marriages.At the moment, working the mine with them are 14 other families freed from Guna which cannot be rehabilitated because, says Jaiprasad, the SDM who freed them is unwilling to issue the necessary certificates.
