A delegation of CPIML leaders including MLAs Satyadev Ram, Mahanand Singh and Gopal Ravidas and MLC Shashi Yadav met with the Governor of Bihar to apprise him of Jeevika workers' demands. They submitted a ten-point memorandum.
Jeevika workers have been on strike since last one month against Bihar government’s decision of stopping their monthly honorarium. While these workers are demanding a raise to the minimum wage level, they were denied whatever was in their hands. Jeevikas are an important link with the Self Help Groups made under National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), who have remarkably contributed in building a network of more than 10 lakhs SHGs involving more than 1.5 crore women in the state.
So far they were provided a monthly honorarium of Rs 1500 by the state government and an additional amount of Rs 150 by each SHG. One Jeevika worker used to supervise 15 SHGs on an average. Now the government has stopped its share of contribution.
The CPIML has been demanding to regularise these workers as basic cadre of NRLM and in place of the honorarium and contributory system, a regular monthly honorarium of Rs 25,000 be provided to them. This important section of rural workers is mostly women.
The CPIML has also demanded to waive off the loans taken under Jeevika mission older than five years and a transparent functioning of state level structures of this Mission.
The Nitish government never tired of boasting of its efforts for women empowerment by showing off more than one crore memberships in SHGs, now the same SHG members and Jeevika workers are feeling betrayed and planning to launch a state wide struggle against the government.
