Beedi workers in Chhattisgarh continue to be exploited
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In Chhattisgarh's beedi-producing belt, more than 50,000 families work in the multi-crore beedi industry. Despite the laws that govern this industry, the beedi workers are paid much less than the minimum wage, have no benefits and are constantly at risk of respiratory diseases
Asha Bai Jagne, a middle-aged housewife from Ram Nagar in Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh, earns a paltry Rs 15 a day making beedis. To earn this meagre sum, she makes 1,000 beedis, spending around eight hours a day. Asha Bai looks after her four children. Her husband, Jhadura, a cobbler, earns about Rs 30 after working hard the entire day. The family struggles to make ends meet. They are unaware of the health risks Asha Bai faces at work.
Khel Bai Tandekar is also middle-aged. Her cobbler husband Shankar is from Shankarpur in Rajnandgaon district. Together they earn around Rs 40 per day and are barely able to meet their expenses and the costs of bringing up three small children.
These two cases are not exceptions in Chhattisgarh's beedi-producing belt of Rajnandgaon, Raipur and Durg districts, where more than 50,000 families are engaged in the multi-crore beedi industry. An overwhelming majority of beedi workers work at home. The industry provides full and part-time employment to nearly 75 lakh people, of which 90% are women.
Chhattisgarh, in fact, enjoys the dubious distinction of supplying more than 40% of beedis consumed in the country.
Beedi-making is the main source of livelihood for thousands of people in this part of the country. The industry is largely controlled by a few big contractors in Rajnandgaon with political connections. While the wage for an agricultural labourer is fixed at Rs 52 per day, beedi workers do not receive even this sum because of the informal nature of their work. "The thriving tendu trade has been ruining the state's agricultural potential," says C S Parate, regional manager of the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD).
Ten years ago, Chhattisgarh had about 10-12 big beedi companies that sold their products under various brand names -- Gai (cow), Bharat, Kesan, etc. However, these companies have now officially closed down; they operate through contractors. "By this method, they do not have to pay salaries and other benefits to the workers," says Rupchand Fule, who runs a beedi workers organisation (Khetreya Beedi Mazdoor Sangh) in the adjoining district of Dongargarh.
Interestingly, within the unorganised sector, the beedi industry is among the few trades that are regulated by laws such as the Beedi and Cigar Workers Act, 1966, and the Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1976. Under the Welfare Fund Act 1976, beedi workers receive scholarships and school uniforms for their children, maternity benefits, health services, housing and life insurance, along with sports and recreation facilities. Funds for all these social security services come from cases levied on employers in the beedi industry. However, many beedi workers are denied the benefits.
Although the beedi workers earn around Rs 15 per 1,000 beedis, the middleman pockets Rs 4 per 1,000 as commission. The contractor earns as much as Rs 50-Rs 100 per 1,000 beedis. "Because of the lack of alternative employment opportunities in this backward region, the beedi workers stick to the profession as it gives them flexible working hours," says J K Prasad, welfare administrator of Raipur. Workers estimate that, on average, a contractor may earn as much as Rs 3,000 per day.
Although most beedi companies have closed down, Chhattisgarh remains one of the largest producers of beedis in the country, after Madhya Pradesh. Interestingly, most of the women engaged in beedi-making are migrants from Maharashtra and belong to poorer sections of society. "Because of our economic backwardness, women are exploited and are unable to form any union of their own," explains Ashok Vondekar, a cobbler from Motipur in Rajnandgaon.
According to Dr Thomas Abraham of a Rajnandgaon-based Christian fellowship hospital, most of the women in the beedi industry suffer some form of respiratory disease. As the women are engaged in making beedis for at least eight hours a day, their lungs are affected by dust from the tendu leaves. Matters are made worse by their habit of chewing tobacco. "Because of their poor economic status, they are unable to access health services," says Abraham. He adds that the incidence of oral cancer amongst the workers is high.
Unfortunately, most of the welfare measures announced by the central and state governments have failed to address the beedi workers' problems. The workers are further exploited, as many of them are uneducated. "Beedi makers have no or negligible access to government welfare measures and the absence of any union makes them vulnerable," says Dr Neelam Malhotra who runs a dispensary for the workers. Although the state government has provided identity cards to most beedi makers, schemes such as the Beedi Workers Welfare Fund, created by the state government, have largely been ineffective.
Although the Chhattisgarh government launched the Swarna Jayanti Sahari Rozgar Yojana to provide soft loans to beedi workers to start up alternative businesses, procedural delays have adversely affected the scheme's popularity. For example, Ashok Vondekar, a cobbler, has been running from pillar to post for the last eight months to get a loan of Rs 40,000. Arpana Chhetri of the welfare department reiterates the point: "Beedi workers are caught between the devil and the deep sea as the absence of a strong union has resulted in exploitation by contractors." Trade union leaders in Chhattisgarh believe there is an urgent need to form cooperatives of beedi workers in order to increase their bargaining power.
Beedi workers should also be provided vocational training to help them set up alternative businesses. Says Kauru Ram Bijhlekar, a trade union leader from Rajnandgaon: "Besides providing vocational training, the government must combine all the welfare schemes for beedi workers so that they can take advantage of them."
(Sandip Das is a media officer with Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), Delhi. He was in Chhattisgarh to study the plight of the beedi workers.)
(InfoChange News & Features, June 2003)