Pratap Sahu of Bhetamingi village under the Shergarh block of Ganjam district in Orissa left for the textile city of Surat in Gujarat in search of work. It was three years back. Though just a matriculate, he landed a job within a few days. Little did he know what was in store.
Life in the slums of Surat is tough for the workers from Orissa. The exploitative nature of the power loom owners and the extreme hard labour involving 12 hours of non-stop work in standing position take their toll. In some cases, workers hi-re rooms just to sleep for a couple of hou-rs. The unhygienic surroundings of the cupboard-like rooms make life worse.
Despite the hardship, people stuck it out. Income was handsome as per the standards of rural Orissa. The worker's family, back home, did not have to worry about feeding its members.
But it seems human endurance and desperation has seen its limits. Pratap Sahu, along with other young co-workers, disembarked at the Berhampur railway station on January 31, never to go back again. Many looms have been shut down since January 18 due to labour unrest. “We no more feel safe in Surat. Mill owners and local workers are hostile. The situation has become more tense following the killing of a worker from Mangalpur village in Ganjam,” he told TSI.
Pratap’s is not an isolated case. Thousands of young workers are coming back to their native villages. The following trains, Ahmedabad-Puri express and Okha-Puri express, bring majority of the migrant workers back to their native land. Thousands of youths with their bedding and luggage including trunks, typical of workers from Surat, are arriving at the Berhampur station every day.
A Berhampur station official told TSI that around 3,000 people arrived every day. Since the mass returns started from January 18 onwards, one can safely put the total number of the returnees at over 50,000. The number keeps growing with every passing day.
There is relief written on their faces. After all, they are back among their own in the land of their own. But there is an unmistakable layer of anxiety too, possibly in anticipation of an uncertain future for themselves and family members.
“Presently, the mill owners pay us just 85 Paise for every metre of cloth work. We demanded an increase of 15 Paise. The owners did not agree to our demand and closed the mills,” said Niranjan swain, another migrant who was returning back to his village of Bhetasinghi. More than two hundred of his fellow villagers had migrated to Surat, TSI learnt.
Workers went on strike from the middle of January. Work at more than 25,000 units was stopped. At a few units, workers demanded a 20 Paisa per metre hike. Some workers called off the strike on January 21 after a meeting with textile mill owners. But even after that, many have not returned to work. According to an industry estimate, Surat weaving units turn out three crore metres of cloth every day. That figure has plummeted.
Migration from Ganjam dates back to the 1860s after a great famine ravaged the land. However, over the last two decades, migration of workers has gone up manifold with the growth of the textile industry in Surat where around 30,000 power looms and more than 6,000 dyeing units are functional. Most of these units are located in the Katargam, Kapodara, Varachcha, A.K. Road, Pandesara, Sach-in, Kim and Bamroli areas of Surat.
District labour officials don't have proper data about their numbers. Ganjam district labour officer N. Misal told TSI that a majority of them migrated on their own through local agents and workers already working in Surat. He added that a large number of people migrated from interior pockets - from blocks like Beguniapada, Polasara, Hinjili, Shergarh, Belguntha, Kabisuryanagar, Purushottampur, Digapahandi, Khallikote and Buguda.
Informal estimates puts the total number of migrant workers in Surat from Orissa at around 9 lakh of which more than 6 lakh are from Ganjam alone. About 30 per cent of these people are seasonal migrants. Put together, these workers remit around Rs 3,000 crore to the state through local hawala channels every year.
“We earn around Rs 10,000 per month,” stated Mithun Pradhan of Koudia village in Shergarh block. Mithun, along with his 18-year-old brother who is illiterate, spent quite a few months in Surat. Surat is one place where they, without formal education and qualifications, can get reasonably well-paid jobs.
“We are now back as the power looms are closed down. But eventually, we will have to go back. We can’t earn that much in our village,” said Mithun while adding that they didn’t have any alternative though they owned agricultural land. With mounting migration, fertile agricultural fields are left unattended.
Migrant workers frequent brothels in Surat and some contract the killer AIDS virus. Around 5,000 Sex workers in Surat mainly live off migrant workers. The virus is fast spreading in Ganjam. More than 300 cases of death from AIDS have been reported so far from the district, making Ganjam one of the eight most AIDS-prone districts in the country.
Despite their huge remittances to native Orissa and contribution to the industrial growth of Gujarat, this labour force is denied civil and political rights. The Inter-State Migrant Workman Act of 1979 is not being enforced. Acts like Workmen Regulation Act and Bonded Labour Act, too, are not implemented effectively. Surat mill owners even do not allow the migrants to form any labour union there. “We face a lot of problems. We are not organised and, thus, lack collective bargaining power. No leader from Orissa has come to Surat to help us,” lamented Panchanan Gouda of Subudhipalli vilage under Buguda block.
According to the Gujarat labour department and state employee insurance planning department, only 1.25 lakh workers in the Surat textile industry are registered. It means that 80 per cent of the workers do not have recourse to any gratuity, pension or other retirement benefits. Only 1,200 workers are registered under the State Employment Insurance Scheme. “Some mill owners do not even pay bonus despite our hard work,” said Pushpa Kumar, another mill worker.
Wages vary too. Some mill owners pay the workers Rs 1.60 for a metre, some pay Rs 0.90 for the same. Typically a worker, who works on a simple machine, gets between Rs 7,000 and 10,000 per month. A Jecard machine worker gets between Rs 10,000 and 15,000.
A mill owner from Kapodara, a suburb of Surat, told TSI, “Though it was not the best of times as recession had just hit the sector, I gave my workers a hike of 10 Paisa per metre last Diwali. I had a hunch they just might strike work. I also wanted to keep them in my unit during the Diwali vacation as most of them go home for long vacations.”
Former deputy Speaker of Orissa Assembly Ram Chandra Panda feels that the mass return of migrants may lead to huge socio-economic problems in rural Ganjam. He also fears a possible spurt in crime. “The Orissa government should either negotiate with its Gujarat counterpart to rehabilitate these migrants in Surat or Orissa should take steps to engage the labour force in the upcoming industrial projects. After all, more than 50 memoranda of understandings have been signed,” the man advised.
The scale of the return of migrants has not gone unnoticed. The chief labour commissioner of Orissa took up the matter with his Gujarat counterpart last week and requested redressal of the Oriya labourers' problems. Pushpendra Singhdeo, Orissa minister for labour and employment, told TSI, “The government is taking this matter seriously and I have personally written to the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, requesting him to address the issue at the earliest.”
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