Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007 ePaper |
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Tamil Nadu
Bad fate: With the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Erode, closing many small dyeing units like the one above in Bhavani, hundreds of labourers are on the streets without work. BHAVANI: Every morning Mani, a dyeing factory worker, cycles to a tea shop near Lakshmi Theatre in the neighbouring Komarapalayam. He waits there till 10 a.m. looking for work. If he is lucky enough, he gets work for a day. He works till five or six in the evening. If not, he returns by 10.30 a.m. to spend the rest of the day, worrying about the fate of his children and family. Not long ago Mani was a happy man, working for a small dyeing factory near his house in Sengadu. And so was his wife, Mallika, who suffers a similar fate now. She, however, does not travel to Komarapalayam. There are hundreds of people like them in this carpet town who are now on the streets, looking for a job, following the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board’s decision to seal dyeing units. With no income, Mallika says she has given up drinking tea. “A tea costs me Rs. 3, which is much more than what a kilo of rice costs. With the money I can buy a kilo of rice, so that my children (two sons and a daughter) do not starve,” says Mallika. Her neighbour Madheswari’s fate is worse. The burden of looking after the family is completely hers, as her husband died a few years ago. Today, she is at the mercy of money lenders. “With no alternative employment, I am dependent on money lenders,” Madheswari says and adds that for every Rs. 100 she borrows, she repays Rs. 110 the following week. There are nearly 20,000 such workers from 5,000 families, who are affected by the closure, says T. A. Madheswaran, Bhavani town secretary of the Communist Party of India. Mr. Madheswaran says it is not just workers who are affected because of the closure. “Owners of the closed units are also affected, for they are not owners in the real sense. Being cottage units, the owner and his family members also work alongside the employees,” he says. 90 units sealedIn all, the TNPCB sealed around 90 units, about 70 in the first phase on September 13 and nearly 20 in the second phase on October 12. The sealed units come under two associations - Bhavani Vattara Siru Sayap-pattarai Oorimaiyalargal Sangam and Bhavani Vattara Siru KooliSayap-pattarai Oorimaiyalargal Sangam. Representatives of the second Sangam said they had purchased six acres in Sengadu to erect a common effluent treatment plant, the approval for which was yet to come. They said they had been waiting for around two years now. They demand Government’s help in setting up a treatment plant. CPI, which is fighting for the workers, also demands the same. “Being very small units, they cannot afford individual plants, but that does not mean they can pollute.The party’s demand is that Government come to their rescue by providing 100 per cent subsidy to set up a common treatment plant, so the workers are not left in lurch on the streets,” says N. Periyasamy, district secretary of the party.
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