[Reader-list] Living and Working Conditions of Migrant Workers on Chennai’s ‘IT corridor’ : second posting

[venkat t]

Living and Working Conditions of Migrant Workers on Chennai's 'IT corridor'
Second posting

Sorry for the delayed posting. I was not in town for the best part of
April and thought I would put in more field work before I write to
you.

The work on OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) which is designated to be IT
corridor has been speeded up. Only a small stretch of about 4 km has
been completed and work has moved to another 5-7 kms. One can see
state of the art machinery at work, razing to complete the road on
schedule. The construction activity along the IT corridor is
progressing unabated as multi storied buildings are fast changing the
skyline.

Most of the construction involves unorganised migrant workers from
Andhra as well as from other eastern and central Indian states. They
are housed in camps close to or on the construction site. In one such
camp we saw 500-700 persons coming to work after lunch from dwelling
units that at best could house around a 100. Their houses (which are
usually a few sheets of aluminum or steel) are provided by the
construction contractors as 'temporary housing'. "We provide them with
houses on the site and once work is over here, we move them to the new
site, we have to provide them with a place to live or else they will
not work, they cannot afford it" said a contractor. Thus the workers,
move from one temporary house to another as long as there is
construction work.

>From enquiries in different places, we can conclude that a day's
labour to an unskilled male worker fetches anywhere between Rs.110 to
Rs.150, while it is not more than Rs.90 for women. "they (contractors)
also give us rooms to stay for free" added a female worker from one of
the camps. They generally work from 10 am to 6 pm with an hours break
for lunch. While the contractors state that they work only for six
days a week, they are generally working on all the seven days a week.
On one site, where they were working on a Sunday, which was supposed
to be a non working day, the contractor said that they would only work
half a day and go to shop for the week's groceries and provisions.

The children, who are too small, ie under the age of 10, are not
employed in any form. But due to lack of day care facilities in many
of the camp sites, children while away their time around construction
site and at times perilously close to construction activity. There
have been few NGOs, which have set up day care centers, where they
also provide primary level education. One NGO runs a couple of centers
for migrant workers where the teach in telugu medium.

Talking about the condition of the migrant workers, the Director of
the NGO, who was one of the key informants said "they (migrant
workers) live in some 25 or more small camps near the sites of
construction, but the problem is they are a floating population. They
keep moving from site to site and to their native places. They live in
small places with no water or other sanitation facilities, many fall
ill and have to leave, their wages is low and they are also cheated by
the contractors, there are also a high level of fatal accidents in the
construction sites. He said "the wages for a local is around 250/-
while for the same work a migrant male worker is paid 150/-. Ladies
are paid around 80/- a day" but while dealing with issues he did not
raise any specific issue about women though he said women numbered
more than men.
While the contractors deny employing people below 18 years of age, we
did encounter a few who said they were 16 years. (They looked
younger).

There are very minimal facilities for sanitation and health care. Some
workers desired having a medical practitioner visit them on a regular
basis. While they did not complain of any accidents or injuries during
work, they did complain that medical fees were exorbitant. One
contractor said "we do provide them with first aid and bear the
expenses for treatment in case of injuries during work, but for
contracting fever or other ailments they have to go to a doctor at
their cost. Most of them especially those who have been staying here
for long go to a clinic in vallurvarkottam ( approx. 20 kms away)
where they charge nominal fees and also provide free medicines. The
facilities in themselves lack sanitation facilities. But only a more
intrusive investigation would reveal how the workers manage with this
lacuna.

Over the next month, we would be concentrating on building rapport
with the construction workers while also meeting with officials from
the labour department as well as with contractors and companies to
know about the terms and conditions under which the workers have been
contracted.

I am working on setting up a blog and hope to put some of the pictures
on it. I will send the URL soon.

Thank you