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Where’s Mama? If big campuses have creches, young mothers will have peace of mind to do their work

Kochi’s on a roll, we are getting Smart! And Infopark is the jewel in the crown. MNCs, be it BPOs, software giants or others have set up shop and we are soon going to be hi-tech, really high on technology. The jobs are good, the salaries better, on the whole we have a good thing going. But the same can’t be said about the timings. But this is the flip side to the feel good factor.

Almost 50 per cent of the workforce in Infopark comprises women and of these most of them have very young children. And these women have a serious problem on their hands. Before we get into that, a look at the State government’s IT policy. Its ‘Vision and Mission’ clearly states, “The Government’s vision is to turn Kerala into a knowledge society with sustainable economic growth, social harmony and high quality of life for all” (section 2.1).

Sure the Infopark is friendly to its women employees in terms of timings, transportation etc, but when it comes to the thing that really matters, Infopark is sadly lacking. ‘A high quality of life for all’ for these women translates to having some kind of a support system which would help them, make things easier for these mothers of young kids. A crèche within Infopark is what they want. It is not about being unreasonably demanding, it is just about wanting an employee-friendly workplace. “If there is such a facility within the campus it would be of great help. We can look in on the child during the course of the day, when we get a break. Besides we can rest easy since there is the option of looking in, they would be better taken care of,” says Meena. And it would increase productivity as well. Is anyone listening?

Says Purnima, “It is not as if we have not considered the option of hiring a full time help. How do you do that when they are so hard to come by? They just do not stay long enough. How do you leave a seven-month-old baby in the care of a person one barely knows, let alone trusts?” Purnima’s mother-in-law lives with her to take care of her child. She talks of a friend who had left her infant with her mother back home in Palakkad, while she and her husband worked in Kochi. Now the baby is with them since her husband works from home. Is this “quality of life”, the price tag that comes attached with ‘development’?

It is the TINA (There is no other alternative) factor. Of course, the really smug among us who can afford to say it will say, “If it is so unbearable why can’t they just quit and sit at home?” But that really is not an option. The answer lies in finding a solution. Quitting is not in their scheme of things, as a grandmother, Prema Menon, who shuttles between her daughter’s home and hers says, “If the government is insistent about going about implementing Western ethics when it comes to work then they might as well do the same when it comes to facilities.”

There is regret that parents and in-laws are being inconvenienced, “It is not at all fair, But what else do we do?” says Sheela. Her in-laws live with her and her husband in order to look after her year-old daughterBesides the obvious problems, there are the emotional ones such as nursing for instance. Some of these mothers breast feed their babies and they have had to stop, or at least make do with nursing between 8 p. m. and 8 a. m. If there is a crèche on the campus, all the mothers have to do is get the babies along when they come to work, leave the babies in the crèche and get on with their jobs, and in between check on their children.

Although these women have approached their respective companies, some of which are MNCs, they do not see much happening. “I have been told by my employer, that since ours is an MNC it has to be a corporate decision which will impact other centres as well. But this is not an isolated problem, lots of women working here have the same problem. So why can’t Infopark do something for us? We are willing to pay for it,” says Meena.

“We want to make Infopark a self-contained campus by developing allied services such as restaurants, hospitals, and yes, crèches too. But that will take time. Developing infrastructure is our primary concentration. Right now we do not have the infrastructure for allied services. We plan to expand by 150 acres more, of which 20-30 acres would be devoted to allied services, but these things take time” says Nishanth Kumar, senior manager – business development, Infopark. Infopark is a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and all SEZs, we are told, are divided into processing and non-processing zones, and Infopark is a 100 per cent processing zone. A processing zone is one where commercial activities take place and a non-processing zone is one where allied services would be located. The long and short of it, cutting through all the jargon is that a crèche at Infopark (at least by Infopark) is a faraway dream of the daydreaming variety.

Prema Menon sums it all up beautifully, “Aren’t children supposed to be the future of a country. But with this kind of an attitude aren’t we creating a generation of loveless children?”

Food for thought, indeed!

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