Bhiwandi's workers still face hard times

Three months after loom owners protested their inclusion in the central value-added tax dragnet, Bhiwandi's powerlooms are humming 18 hours a day.

It's business as usual for about 75 per cent of the 600,000-odd powerlooms here. But the 700,000 unorganised labourers who suffered the silence of the looms for the last three months are still paying a heavy price.

Mustufa Khan, from Balia in Uttar Pradesh, has been working 18-hour shifts at Ramzan Fabrics, owned by Dipesh Seth. He has worked for 15 days but has nothing to show for it. He borrowed Rs 2,000 from Seth during the three months he was out of work and this has been written off. Now he can begin earning.

"Unfortunately since November (2002) the power supply in Bhiwandi's industrial belt has been restricted to 18 hours only. If it was on for 24 hours, as was the case earlier, more fruitful labour would be available," he says after prayers at the Syed Sufi Abdul Dargah.

In the adjacent Wadhal Devi temple, wives of powerloom workers bring their offerings for the deity. A post-prayer ritual involves throwing a puri-sabji mix into the Wadhal Devi lake from its embankment. This is to ensure that the food chain for the powerloom workers is not broken again.

But this is wishful thinking. For Khan and his ilk from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, their salaries are just about enough for two meals a day and to pay a nominal rent for the privilege of sharing space with seven to ten other men in 10 feet by 10 feet tenements close to the Wadhal Devi lake.

Explains Ram Dharia, as he strolls across the lake's embankment. "For a nine-hour shift (including an hour for lunch), a powerloom worker on average rolls out 20 metres of grey cloth for which he is paid Rs 100-125.

This varies from loom to loom. There is no fixed income for loom workers. There is no job security either, which means we do not work all days of the month," says Dharia, who comes from the Indo-Nepal border region of Kolbhe.

For the loom workers who have returned from their villages after the strike ended (an estimated 75 per cent of the 700,000 workers) it is time to pay their debts.

In addition to repaying their sustenance loans, many still owe the friendly neighbourhood hotels that used to serve them food on credit. Each worker piled up a two-month food bill during the time he was jobless.

Then, the collecting agents of private chit funds (commonly referred to as Bhishis) are on the prowl. They are looking for workers who had successfully bid for the collective monthly booty raised through individual monthly contributions that were auctioned and then stopped paying their monthly installments once they lost their jobs.

For these daily, fortnightly or monthly paid workers, who find it hard to stretch their meagre earnings to cover their food, rent and medical bills, their only hope is in the continued operations of the Bhiwandi looms.

The workers have no representation, no fixed wage, no fixed working hours or other benefits that are mandatory under the labour laws that seemingly govern Indian industry.

On the other hand, the loom owners are a much represented lot, with a multiplicity of trade unions representing their cause against the imposition of Cenvat. In fact, these unions openly say that the black economy in the powerloom township is justified.