Jamadiul-Awwal / Jamadiul-Akhir 1423 H
August 2002
Volume 15-08 No:188
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Jamadiul-Awwal / Jamadiul-Akhir 1423 H August 2002 Volume 15-08 No:188 |
A small group of determined workers is set to change the way the beedi workers live and earn their livelihood in the small district town of Mandya, 100 kms. south of Bangalore. Having planned a housing colony for 1,500 of the beedi workers families, they have organised the nearly 10,000 beedi workers and their womenfolk into small self-help groups (SHG) in order to raise the required finances, procured 50 acres of land from the government, planned a layout and working in tandem with several government agencies to translate their dream of giving a better deal to the workers.
Though quite close to Bangalore, Mandya is an obscure
district headquarters on the railway line to Mysore. It was only two years ago
that social workers led by Mohammad Zabiulla were prodded into forming the
Mandya Taluka Beedi Workers Multipurpose Society Limited by then Deputy
Commissioner of Mandya district L. K. Atheeq. The Society organised the 5,000
and odd beedi workers, nearly 90 per cent of them Muslims in the town living
scattered in several localities, carrying out their vocation in thatched hovels
along the open sewage drains amid all round poverty. Though they earned Rs. 40
to 50 a day by making around 1,000 beedis daily, their life was bereft of hope.
There was no one to look after their kids’ education, 
health,
marriage or fulfil their need for loans. A house of their own was a dream. All
that they knew was to collect raw material from the beedi contractors in the
morning and deliver the finished product at the end of the day. Normally three
to four members of the household roll beedis and the income is considerable. The
work began with the Deputy Commissioner and the local Congress MLA M. S.
Atmananda who called a meeting of the 15 beedi contractors of the town and
sounded them about the housing project.
Two years later, the Society is about to launch the construction of a 1,500-house colony at a 50-acre site in the dried bed of Chikkamandya tank in the outskirts of Mandya town. The land has been allotted to the Society by Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Limited under a Karnataka government scheme. The land development which includes laying of sewerage, drainage, roads, water supply, electricity, etc will cost the society nearly Rs. 3.70 crore. Of these, the 1500 house allottees have already contributed Rs. 75 lakh. The Government of Karnataka has contributed nearly Rs. 7 lakh for the development under Ashraya housing scheme. Some amount will be raised from local area development funds assigned to the MLA and the MP. Some sites set aside for shops and commercial establishments too would contribute considerable sum towards the development of the layout.
The 1,500-house colony will be organised on the basis of a cluster of four mutually joined houses forming a unit and five such clusters being banded together and separated by neatly laid roads. A 100-bed hospital would come up on a 2-acre plot. Three parks, several playgrounds, a shadi mahal (marriage/convention hall), three schools, a college too would come up on reserved areas.
Each
house would cost the beedi worker around Rs. 82,500 as it is worked out by the
PWD. But the Society’s secretary Akram Pasha expects that it would come down
to Rs. 75,000 going by the vast magnitude of the work. Of these, Rs. 20,000
would come as a subsidy by the Central Government Labour Welfare Department
under a special scheme meant for beedi worker’s housing. Another Rs. 40,000
would come from Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) in the form of
a loan to be repaid with 11 per cent interest in 15 years in 180 equal monthly
instalments. In monthly terms, a house allottee would need to pay Rs. 460 a
month to own the house.
Says Zabiulla, “the challenge lies in organising the beedi workers. The beedi workers enjoy several benefits under central and state government schemes. One only needs to tap them and work as a catalyst to take them to the doorstep of the beedi workers who are a disorganised lot.”
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Incentive Schemes
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Physical facilities like housing and loans are likely to be wasted if the human element is not injected into such schemes. This needs training, education and skill development.
While
the work on housing society for beedi workers is going apace in Mandya, the
Vikasana Institute for Rural Development is grooming the beedi workers with its
social education programme inculcating into them saving habits, health and
hygiene, environment consciousness, nutrition, shramadan (contributing labour
for social needs), family counselling etc. Within six months of commencing the
work, they have organised nearly 11000 women beedi workers into 55 self-help
groups(SHG). The groups collect at a point once in a week and discuss their
mutual issues, collect money for their mutual fund and entrust it to a group
leader for depositing in the bank.
When this correspondent met Bibi Fathima SHG in Sadathnagar slums, Vikasana project coordinator, Jayaseela, an M.A. in Sociology, was seen discussing with 14 women members their mutual loan needs. The group which was formed on February 2 this year has so far raised Rs. 5,329. The funds come handy for petty loan needs of the beedi workers who are thereby saved from going to private moneylenders. Similarly, the women members of Ghousia Mahila SHG had collected Rs. 7,890 while Yarasool SHG and Dada Hayath SHG had raised Rs. 650 and Rs. 2248. Says Nasreen Taj, a councillor in Mandya City Municipality, the amount thus saved by the women would be utilised for repaying housing loans to the HUDCO in future.
According to P. M. K. Namoodiri, Project Director for Vikasana Insititute, the SHG groups were formed for the purpose of socio-economic empowerment of beedi rolling women.
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Al-Nasr
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There
are several incentives and benefit schemes for the beedi workers. Due to
lack of organisation and awareness, most beedi workers do not benefit from
the same. Here are few: