The Hindu Business Line : Weaving dreams into reality

These are certainly not the best of times for the textile industry, which had just recovered after a long slump, but only to be hit this year by the appreciating rupee. Despite this, mills are offering better facilities to educate and train women workers, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.

A class in progress at the Valli Textile mill in Satuur…It is when these girls realise their dreams that the 9-10 per cent growth rate will have real meaning.

The pride you feel at an India growing at 9 per cent and the shimmering reflection of that face of India in our metros — the busy malls, the packed restaurants, the buzzing multiplexes — vanishes in an instant when you survey the tension and distress in the rural areas. Agriculture as a vocation continues to give diminishing returns; the cost of inputs and labour, that is when the latter is available at all, the inability of the majority of farmers to go in f or crop insurance, present a dismal face of the farm sector.

This is true particularly for the small and marginal farmers with two-five acre landholding. The bigger farmers manage to meet ends for various reasons; they have financial muscle, access to information and technology, a superior seed bank and irrigation patterns that are not dependent on the rains alone. Above all, they have an alternative business.

Talk to the children of farmers in the south and you’ll find most of them cherish dreams of making it to India’s vibrant IT and ITeS sector some day. But looking at the kind of education they have access to, you also know that only a minuscule minority from this group will make it to our cities and towns to contribute to this technological revolution. And that too only because our IT service providers have little option than to look at the smaller towns and villages to meet their increasing manpower needs.

No surprises for guessing that when children of farmers or daily wage earners in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, etc do get an opportunity to enter an engineering college, the first preference is for the boys. In most rural families, where the parents can scrape the barrel to organise the higher education fees of only one child, the sister invariably has to suppress her dreams and longings for a better life.

In this background, when one visited a few villages in Madurai and Coimbatore districts to take a look at the textile mills which have a scheme known by various names such as “marriage expenditure scheme” or the “apprentice scheme” that employs young girls as apprentices, it warmed the heart to see bright eyes, happy faces, and each of them harbouring a dream for a better future.

Pioneers

The scheme that was first introduced by Premier Mills in the early 1990s after the group chairman, Mr R. Jagadish Chandran had seen such a scheme work successfully in Japan. Under this scheme, rural girls in the age group 17-20 are selected to undergo a three-year apprenticeship in textile mills in close vicinity of their homes. The distance can vary but typically it tends to be around 50-100 km. The girls are kept in hostels, earn a daily wage of around Rs 90-100 in the better run mills, and are given a lumpsum Rs 30,000- 40,000 after the three-year period. As often this money is used to pay the dowry, the scheme got the ‘marriage’ tag.

SAVINGS

Giving details of this scheme Mr Manikam Ramaswami, Chairman of Loyal Textile Mills and former president of the South Indian Mills Association, which today has about 350 textile units as members, says that the “monthly wages are collected by the parents of the girl. You should see the way they all line up on the first of the month to collect the salaries. Often, even after the three-year apprenticeship period is over, the girls are asked by their parents to continue, as the entire family depends on her salary. It often pays for the younger brother or sister’s school fees and other expenses.”

Obviously your thoughts immediately go to the girls who have put in immense efforts, through eight-hour long shifts, to earn this money. Should they not have at least a portion of this as their personal savings?

To this question, Mr P. Willington Jebaraj, General Manager (Personnel and Administration) of the Premier Mills unit in Pulankinar village in Udumalpet Taluk (near Coimbatore), replies: “Oh yes, girls these days are getting more aware. Many of them come and ask us, ‘Why do you hand over the entire salary to our parents? After all, it is our money. Please put some of it in an RD account in a bank or in the post office.”

But, he adds, he cannot do this without the parents’ permission, but when they do agree he is able to start such a savings scheme for his employee. One verified this with many girls in this and other units visited, but the amount set aside was paltry Rs 200-250 a month, out of a salary of around Rs 2600.

Mr K. Prabhakaran, General Manager of Shiva Texyarn, a unit of the Bannari Amman Spinning Mills, in Dindigul, agrees that most parents are not in favour of putting aside money in the names of these girls. “The parents insist on taking the entire money, and if we insist they will simply take away their girls, so we have no choice.” But where the mills do have a choice, and where no parent would ever resist, is the introduction of training classes to educate those of the girls who show interest in academics.

Higher education

Mr Ramaswami recalls that four years ago “a young woman in our Personnel department, whose mother was the principal of a college, told me that academic aspirations are high among the girls we employ. So can we start continuous education for them?”

He okayed the scheme but it was kicked off only last year, as it took time to get enough numbers to make it economically viable for the company to start the training classes.

At Valli Mills, a unit of Loyal Textiles in Sattur, a coaching class in on. A teacher from the Tamil Nadu Open University is taking classes for the B.A. (Tamil Literature) students. Mr T. Murugesan, Manager-Co-ordination, says that of his 1,200 workers, 800 are female. “Last year 59 girls enrolled for the different degree courses, Tamil Literature being the most popular. This year, 210 girls have enrolled for classes, and we will spend Rs 4.5 lakh on this scheme.

In fact, the company has been sponsoring the education of its employees — though not on the campus — for a long time. And Mr Saravanan, the Personnel Manager at this unit, is one such beneficiary. Having done his B.A. (Economics), he later got an additional qualification in Labour Management and has been working with this company for 13 years.

Apart from B.A (Tamil Literature), B.A (History) and B.Com are popular subjects and one girl has even opted for English literature. Most girls aspire to be teachers, and some confidently express the desire to continue in the same mill but in the clerical category.

Dire times

An opportunity for higher education, mill owners and managers admit, is clearly an incentive for the girls to keep working at their mill. With better employment opportunities opening up, young men are no longer willing to look at less-paying jobs such as the ones offered by textile mills. And the “dexterous fingers” of girls are better suited for textile jobs. Also, they show no interest in joining trade unions, and this is the reason, point out mill owners, managers, and SIMA representatives, that trade unions have gone to court, charging that the scheme is exploitative in nature. “They have given it names such as “campus coolies”, but I have personally visited several mills and found that barring an odd case of discrimination or exploitation, this scheme has really changed the living standards and future prospects for these girls,” says Dr K. Selvaraju, Secretary-General, SIMA.

These are certainly not the best of times for the textile industry, which had just recovered after a long slump, but only to be hit this year by the appreciating rupee which has made exports unviable for most units. Mr Ramaswami points that several units are closing down and the government’s taxation policies, the cost of electricity that these mills have to pay, etc are not helping.

He admits that the industry is going through such dire times that mills are outdoing each other in offering better facilities for the girls in the hostels. TVs and DVD players are passé — in one hostel we saw a 55” Sony Bravia placed in a huge hall — recreation facilities, outings, better food, an idyllic working environment, P.T. and even yoga classes, are some of the innovations offered by textile units to engage the girls’ interest and check attrition. At a unit of the KPR Mills, a five-star hotel-like swimming pool is an added attraction, and about 100 girls use this facility every day.

Watching the girls, the confidence with which they sketch their dreams — 23-year-old P. Pashupathi at Premier is doing II Year BBA course and wants to do an MBA — one can hardly believe that “when they came here they had to be taught how to brush their teeth, how to use a toilet etc”.

She has no time for any thoughts about marriage. “I first have to do an MBA, so I can be absorbed in a management position in this same company, only then I’ll think of marriage.”

But isn’t her family harassing her? “Not at all. In fact, when I go back to my village where some of my friends already have two or three children, they tell me they envy my lifestyle. They say our lives are finished, but you must become somebody someday.” It is when such girls realise their dreams that numbers such as a 9 per cent or 10 per cent growth rate will have a real meaning.

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

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