The Hindu Business Line : Earning their stripes

Theirs are faces I won’t forget for a long time. Their smiles are special and so is the determination expressed by each pair of eyes. Without words, or not too many words.

It is always a challenge to fathom what is really happening in the underbelly of India. The stories of our metros and towns, Bollywood, Kollywood, catwalks and malls and fine-dining restaurants, the strategic moves in corporate boardrooms are tracked to the minutest detail. But to hold a mirror to the changing face of rural India can also be an exciting assignment.

One such change is happening in villages surrounding the textile mills of Tamil Nadu in Madurai and Coimbatore districts where the girls employed by the mills are now being offered incentives such as an opportunity for higher education through the Tamil Nadu Open University and extra-curricular activities such as yoga classes, a plethora of games, outings at regular intervals and swimming!

The swimming pool for women at the KPR Mills.

A visitor to one of the units of the KPR mills in Nilambur would be awe-struck to find a five-star hotel like swimming pool. Ranganathan, General Manager, confirms that this is strictly for use by the 1,000-odd girls working in this unit. One has particularly asked to see the place, but is disappointed to find it empty, with only a lone female attendant cleaning the pool.

But the GM has an explanation. “Everyday about 100 girls use this pool but since you wanted to see it and you’d be accompanied by another male officer from SIMA (South Indian Mills Association) and I, they were asked to vacate it. No male members are allowed anywhere near the place.”

If you wonder how such a perk is being given to daily-wage earners of barely Rs 100, when it is not enjoyed by women earning even 20-25 times that salary, the explanation is simple. And this is to motivate girls to work for textile mills. Young men are no longer willing to look at a job as a daily-wage earner in textile units. The work is dull, unchallenging and even tedious. And the wage is not that great. As Manikam Ramaswami, Chairman of the Loyal Textile Group, points out, “Today, you will not find a single mill in Tamil Nadu which does not have a board saying workers required.”

Rising aspirations

Meena and Pasupathi at the Premier Mills

But in an economy powered by a 9-plus per cent growth rate, aspirations have gone up, particularly in IT and ITeS hubs such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Long years of drought, rising input costs and shortage of farm labour have made agriculture an unviable livelihood option, particularly for smaller farmers. Sons of farmers in these parts of India aspire to become software engineers and work for Infosys or Wipro!

While in rare cases daughters too might get an opportunity for higher education, the bulk of girls end up with some elementary education and the responsibility for housework and bringing up younger siblings. “It is these girls that we aim to employ in our mills,” says K. Prabhakaran, General Manager of Shiva Texyarn, a unit of the Bannari Amman Spinning Mills, in Dindigul, explaining that dexterous fingers of young women make them more suitable for several tasks in the mills.

So how difficult or arduous is the job? “They take about six months to learn, but after that find it very easy, and some of them even opt for overtime,” he says.

The girls stay in hostels and the shortage of labour ensures that the mills go out of their way to keep the young wards happy. As S.V. Alagappan, Managing Director of Bannari Amman Mills says, “We make it a point to give three eggs a week. I constantly tell my GM, please keep asking the girls what they want to eat and give them the best possible.”

Many of these mills also set up fruits or bakery stalls where the girls can indulge in a little extravagance when parents leave some money in their hands. Invariably there is a long queue of parents before the units on salary day, and the monthly package of around Rs 2,600 is often collected in full. The grim reality of the Indian rural scene is that in many homes it is the daughter’s salary that keeps the family going. The lucky ones get to keep some pocket money to buy biscuits, gulab jamoon or fruits.

Educational opportunity

But much more than the meals or the fruits, these girls aspire for a better tomorrow which can be unlocked only through education. At the Premier Mills unit in Pulankinar, Udumalpet Taluk (near Coimbatore), P. Willington Jebaraj, General Manager, explains that of the 1,200 girls, 215 have opted for higher education classes. “Most of them want B.A., Tamil Literature, History, B.Com; some have enrolled for post-graduate degrees and others for technical courses. Over 780 girls have passed typewriting, 519 have passed a basic computer course and 920 DTP (desktop printing). Some with DTP knowledge have even landed government jobs.” Apart from this, vocational courses such as tailoring, weaving, etc are also offered.

There is discernible pride in his voice; he knows he has a unique opportunity to transform so many lives and help socially and economically disadvantaged girls realise their dreams. P. Pasupathi is obviously a star in this unit; the manner and confidence with which she walks, the ease with which she handles questions point towards this. She is 23, hails from the Keelanachi Kulam village in Madurai district, 150 km from the unit, and joined the mill in 2005. A student of III Year BBA through the TN Open University, next on her list is an MBA degree.

But isn’t there pressure from her parents for marriage?

“Certainly not. I’ve told them I have to attain excellence, establish my identity, join a management position in this mill, and then perhaps I’ll think of marriage.”

As you cheer her dream, Jebaraj smiles, “Today she has so much self-confidence. But you should have seen her when she came here; she could barely talk. Now she is aware of the world around her and her own rights. She saves Rs 200 every month in Post Office.”

Pasupathi adds that when the three-year scheme is over and she’ll get a lumpsum payment of around Rs 50,000 (the girls get between Rs 30,000 and 50,000 on completing the scheme), “I’ll put it in a Bank fixed deposit. And, I will not give dowry when I get married, the goods that my parents give the boy will vanish with time, but my confidence will not.”

The bubbly young woman is in a mood to talk and resents the fact that I will hardly spend an hour at the mill. “You should spend a whole day with us,” she says, before adding that many of her friends, married and with two or three children, envy her lifestyle. “After all marriage is a gamble, you may or may not get a good husband. But coming here has opened up my mind, my world. And I’ve brought five more girls from my village to work here.”

For Jebaraj, Pasupathi is more than a goodwill ambassador, having bagged four awards with suggestions to improve productivity, cost-cutting, etc. She flashes the 3-gram gold ring she has bought with the award money.

Her colleague T. Meena, 22, is another award winner who is doing II Year B.A. Tamil Literature, and comes from a village 280 km away. One of four daughters says, “I came here only to do a degree and become a teacher.” She too has a post-office savings account and an LIC policy for Rs 4,000.

K. Lakshmi too is clear that she will go from Premier with as many skills as possible. A I year BBA student, she has done a computer and DTP course. She has lost her father, and is not interested in personal savings. “All my money goes to buy books.”

More mills and more heart-warming stories. At the Shiva Texyarn of Bannari Amman the GM, K. Prabhakaran, explains the recruitment process. “It’s not easy. Initially parents are suspicious of what these girls will have to do, the working conditions etc. They are worried about their daughters’ safety. So we send out vans and bring them here, show them the mills, the hostel facilities, etc. We also get the support of self-help groups to explain this scheme to them.”

He adds that not always do the girls leave after completing three years. At his unit 16 girls in the 20-21 age group have completed the scheme; of these only three have got married, 13 have opted to stay behind. As the lumpsum the girls get after three years is mostly used for dowry this is also known as the “marriage expenditure scheme.”

Long haul

The mills have stories of empowerment but not only of young women. Shanti (34) has been working at this Bannari Amman unit for 17 years; from Rs 5 a day she now makes Rs 195, and collects a bonus of Rs 20,000. Her husband Manivel works here as a supervisor. Their son (12) and daughter (10) go to a private school. The couple have used their savings wisely, buying a 4 acre farm four years ago for Rs 5 lakh, and get an annual income of Rs 25,000 from it.”

So what did she do with her bonus this year?

“I have lent the money at 24 per cent interest,” is her reply!

Apart from a fridge, colour TV, cooking gas, wet grinder etc — “I’d like to buy a dining table but there is no place in my house” — she has bought 400 grams of gold and plans to buy more with her RD savings. The couple also owns two TVS 50 scooters for the 9-km commute to work, as they work in different shifts.

Says Prabhakaran, “She is so smart that she has roped in another woman to share the ride; she says the bike is hers so the other worker has to contribute for petrol and maintenance.”

It would be naïve to think that all is hunky-dory with this scheme in these factories. There have been complaints of harassment and exploitation, poor quality of food and hostel facilities; trade unions and some NGOs have also gone to courts calling these girls “campus coolies” and the like.

The managers at the units concede that there may be genuine cases of some grievances, but point out that these are quickly addressed. SIMA’s Secretary General Dr K. Selvaraju admits that there are stray cases and the “one case the media keeps projecting is of a mill in Palani which became sick and the girl was not given the lumpsum of Rs 30,000. In that particular mill no worker received his statutory benefit, but that is not projected. Only this case is projected to paint the entire scheme bad.”

A recent survey of 2,600 girls done by three colleges in 75 mills in the Coimbatore region, 20 mills around Salem and 60 mills in Madurai region found that over 95 per cent girls were happy. He adds that the textile industry is in such bad shape thanks to the rising rupee that “if this scheme is touched the entire production will collapse.”

Two faces, two stories

In the textile mills of Tamil Nadu that employ girls, a quiet social transformation is taking place. The village girls not only get a set of skills to work in the spinning units, but some of them also get higher education.

Saranya

Others dream of such a day. You also find poignant stories of how these girls' salaries go towards sustaining entire families. At the Shiva Texyarn, we come across 18-year-old S. Saranya, a very quiet girl, who lives in the hostel. She has been trained to work at a Rs 27-lakh computerised machine that does cotton grading. Like several of her colleagues, she too would like to have some personal savings but this is not possible. She has lost her father and on payday her mother collects her entire salary. A girl of few words, she has to be prodded to tell us who else is at home.

The story that unfolds is heartrending and a mirror of rural India. Saranya would have loved to continue her education beyond Std XII, but "my mother couldn't pay my fees." But the money she earns today goes for paying the fees of her 21-year-old brother, a first-year student of Electrical Engineering!

Selvi

"She should be proud," comments somebody. One wonders, and rightly so, because Saranya whispers, "Someday I'd like to do a B.A. and get a much better job." At a unit of the KPR mills, among the girls crowding the bakery stall, one finds 17-yearold Selvi. She pulls out money from the envelope (her salary package) to pay Rs 20 for biscuits and gulab jamoon. Two weeks old at the unit, she finds her job "super", and reports for the yoga class 30 minutes ahead. She has studied only till Std VI, "because circumstances at home didn't allow it." She has lost bothparents and " gets to keep her salary", says P. Ranganathan, the GM.

"I have an elder brother who is studying electrical engineering. Some day when I have money, I'll also study," she says cheerfully. Meanwhile, she is happy here. "I've never been so happy in my life," says the gregarious teenager and offers me a gulab jamoon, before running off to her yoga class!

It's startling to be suddenly addressed in English. It's "Balammal alias Bobby", who did a B.Sc. in catering from Annamalai University last year. "I even got a job at a hotel in Bangalore, but they didn't allow me to go. My parents consulted an astrologer who said I should not go for this job." What is worse, "he said I should not stay at home either, that's why I've been sent here." And all this because the stars had to be in the right position for her to find a "suitable husband".

So does she believe in all this? "Of course not, I'm not interested in marrying," replies the 19-year-old. "But mummy believes in it, so I came here four months ago." But her heart is elsewhere. "Of course I like it very much here, have made friends and the food is very good. But one day, I dream of becoming a big chef in a hotel," she says.

More Stories on : Human Resources | Gender | Textiles | Rural Development

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