Spinning a change

Javed Nissar, 48, is happy. “ Achha hua ” (It is good), he said of the recent demonetisation move. A second generation employee in Fort William Jute Mill in Howrah, 10km from the heart of Kolkata, Nissar opened a Jan Dhan account last year. But he had rarely used it till a week ago, when for the first time his ₹5,000 fortnightly wage was transferred to the account, instead of being handed over in cash.

Nissar is one among the 1,300 of the 1,800 workers in Fort William Jute Mill, who already had bank accounts and got fortnightly wages (jute industry pays salaries every fortnight) as per schedule. The mill managers have tied up with a local bank to help those who didn’t have accounts to open one. According to Raghavendra Gupta, Chairman of Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA), 90 per cent of the labourers across the industry got their wages through bank transfers. This is a dramatic turn for the industry. Till November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, just five mills - Hukumchand, Cheviot, Naihati, Ganges and Caledonian – were paying salaries partly or fully through banks. The rest were handing over cash. India has a little over 80 jute mills employing nearly 3.7 lakh people. Three-fourth of the mills are in West Bengal (the rest are distributed over seven other states including Assam, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh), mostly in the suburban Kolkata, where banks and ATMs are not difficult to find.

The change has spread to the neighbourhood tea industry, which employs 17 lakh workers in West Bengal and Assam. Beginning December, salaries to tea workers, both permanent and temporary, would be paid through banks.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is on a mission mode to ensure payment to the workers. Banks were given a deadline of December 5, to open accounts of the estimated 60 per cent workers who are still without an account. . From December 15, salary transfers are expected to be online.

State-owned telecom service provider BSNL has been asked to strengthen connectivity to the 792 tea estates in the state. This includes ensuring internet connectivity to nearly 25 per cent estates living outside the periphery of digital India. Executives from the industry are working in tandem with their counterparts at the banks to change payment schedules of workers and to ease the delivery of cash through micro ATMs. Some of the tea gardens have already got full-fledged ATMs after the demonetisation announcement.

“We expect majority of the gardens to move over to the new regime in December. For some, the bank transfers may be delayed till January,” said Sandip Ghosh, Secretary, Assam Branch Indian Tea Association.

Legacy issues In both the sectors labour costs are high— 30 per cent of the total expenses in jute, and 70 per cent in tea. Cash payments and lack of uniformity in wages (sometimes there can be four different wage structures in a jute mill), gave ample scope for those siphoning funds through cost gold-plating. While the jute industry blamed the workers for the poor performance in financial inclusion, others put the onus back on the businessmen and the business-politics nexus.

For the tea industry, spread over far flung areas, safety was also an issue, especially when it came to handling cash because of its history with extremism. Albeit the reasons, the consequences were borne by labourers. Both the sectors show high on the list of defaulters when it comes to paying their workers. Though the IJMA, which has 31 mills on its roll, says there have been no fresh cases of default for seven years, this is an industry where workers’ grievances are perpetual.

Many see bank transfer as one of the steps to bring transparency in operations. Concerned that they might face the ire of workers for non-payment of wages, jute mill owners now want to transfer salaries through bank.

Nissar, the jute mill worker, welcomes the change but admits that those who didn’t have the account faced problems in getting wages. Fatima Bibi, 40, of Hukumchand had to open an account to get wages. And, she is irritated about the delay. But her colleague, Shahzad Ali (52) convinced her that getting salaries through the bank will benefit her.

Ali had opened an account four months ago, nearly two years after the mill became among the first in Naihati to opt for bank transfer to pay salaries. “If you get cash, you tend to blow it up,” he said. Ali has saved ₹1,200 over last four months.

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