The Hindu Business Line : Where money has new meaning

There is a yearning for quality education in the remotest corners of the country. That the children of landless farm workers, village barbers and dhobis are managing to escape the curse of child labour and make it to a college education and a well-paying job is inspiring, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT, after visiting a rural BPO in Tirupati.

Shahida, one of the 500 employees of a successful rural BPO in Tirupati.

The pair of crutches was visible and yet not placed there to grab anybody’s attention. One soon learnt they were not there to get sympathy; in fact, they were a statement that their owner, one of the over 500 employees of the rural BPO started by HDFC Bank in Tirupati, considered herself an equal among her colleagues.

The crutches were Shahida’s. A 25-year-old Muslim woman from a village in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, about 30 km from Tirupati, she was dressed in a black gown, which is part of the burqa she wears to work. She completed her B.A. in Economics in Telugu medium in 2007, and talks casually about the “waste of one year” … the time it took to get her a job in this BPO, which is known as the Atlas Documentary Facilitators Company Pvt Ltd.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the HDFC Bank, the employees at this rural BPO do backroom processing for the Bank’s data in such functions as opening of new accounts, credit-card related information, foreclosure of loans, etc. Shahida’s father is a farm labourer who can barely make a daily wage of Rs 60-70, and that too on the days work is available.

A first generation graduate, since October 2008, when she landed this job with a take-home salary of Rs 3,700, she has been sending home Rs 2,000 every month to her parents — precious money that is going to educate her two younger brothers studying in the first and second year of college.

If you consider that Shahida lives in a working women’s hostel, where she pays Rs 1,500 a month for her boarding and lodging charges, and do the math, she gets to keep a paltry Rs 200 for herself. But, after office hours — her shift is from 7 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. — she returns to the hostel, rests for an hour or so, and then gets cracking on embroidering sarees.

The work is intricate, the labour immense, and the reward paltry… but she gets to make an additional Rs 300 a month, and keep it too. And she needs this money for bus fare to go home every week on her off day.

First generation graduates

The stories of her colleagues — to be told elsewhere in these columns — are similar. Most of them are first generation graduates and first generation employees lucky enough to work in a swank office like the one put up by the HDFC Bank for its rural BPO. Children of landless labourers, dhobis, tailors, barbers, all from a rural background, these young Indians realise how lucky they are to get the opportunity to reach a college, and more important, land a job that pays them Rs 5,000 a month… a sum their parents could never dream of earning. And they have the benefit of ESI and PF too.

They have had to fight for what most of us take for granted — a college education, a secure home, enough food on the table and a job in an air-conditioned office. And articulation skills. They have been screened and selected through the EGMM (Employment Generation Marketing Mission) of the Government of India, which gives them basic skills such as working on a computer.

But, as Mr M. Durgaprasad, Assistant Vice-President and Head, Operations (BPO), points out: “When they come they can barely manage 15 words to a minute on the computer but we also give them some more training and then work towards improving their speed, efficiency and English language skills too. I find them sincere, disciplined and hardworking.” The ultimate aspiration, you soon find out, is to be able to converse in English, and fluently. It is gratifying that they are not too shy to speak to you in English, displaying the skill they have already picked up in functional English.

What is most remarkable is that without exception these youngsters send back a chunk of their salary to their parents; the few who are lucky to have their homes in the vicinity of Tirupati city, particularly women, are happy to hand over their entire salaries to their parents. If the home or hostel is 2-3 km away from office, they don’t need transport; they simply walk! These are rural Indian habits for you!

The dowry scourge

Shahida, a victim of polio from the age of one, says she is not interested in marriage. Her self-denial speaks a thousand words about her slim chances in a marriage market where bridegrooms have to be bought through relatively high sums to be paid as dowry.

A couple of brave young women say they will not pay dowry, and the others concede, without uttering words, that a part of what they send their parents is being put aside to go into their dowry kitty. But you can see visible pride on the faces of those whose hard-earned-and-little-spent salaries are going into educating their younger siblings.

Over the years, as the sleepy giant called India awakens from its slumber to find and occupy its rightful place on the world stage, there is an increasing yearning for quality education in the remotest corners of the country.

That the children of landless farm workers, village barbers and dhobis are managing to escape the curse of child labour or full-time household chores and caring for siblings and making it to a college education, even of doubtful quality, is indeed very heartening.

And then, a government-sponsored initiative such as the EGMM screening the best among the rural graduates and getting them jobs, with supporting State government services pitching in a bit — like a month’s accommodation in State-run hostels — are all very positive signs.

Just as the developed world outsources services, many of which were till recently not considered worth doing by their own people, to India, more financial and other institutions will find it economically worthwhile to shift their backroom work to smaller towns and cities that can source skilled labour from our rural hinterland.

The land is cheaper, the salaries lower and the wages got through such enterprises will not go to buying designer labels, branded personal care products, glitzy gizmos or five-star hotel meals — something that well-off city kids are so addicted to.

Here, the colour of money and its meaning are very different and its value phenomenal. In some cases, it will go to put more substantial meals on the table... nay, the floor; elsewhere, it will go into educating siblings and giving them a better future, and in some cases, as I discovered while talking to a young man, the son of a barber, to paying the huge debt his father had incurred for his sister’s dowry.

So what if, in some instances, that money is safely put into a bank account to pay for the woman employee’s dowry when she gets married?

At least her parents will not have to be at the mercy of moneylenders and exorbitant interest rates that make it impossible for them to repay the loan.

Transforming India

At this particular BPO, the gender ratio is 55:45, biased in favour of women. Of course, one swallow does not a summer make, and tens of thousands of such ventures benefiting rural youth are required to make a difference in our populous country. But a beginning has to be made somewhere.

As rural households discover that even girls can be educated and enter gainful employment, the ending of their lives even before they begin, in the womb itself, will be put to a halt, at least in rural India.

But in Tirupati, a couple of hundred young Indians hold out a ray of hope and send a message to corporate India: “Take a look at us too… and beyond the CSR initiatives required to decorate your annual reports. We will be loyal, disciplined and hardworking and help to make your business profitable. In the process we will transform the face of India… just give us a chance.”

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

More Stories on : Outsourcing | Rural Development | Gender | Rasheeda Bhagat

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