Labour Welfare Organisation gives hope to wards of beedi workers

Syed Muthahar Saqaf

TIRUCHI: The Labour Welfare Organisation of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment disbursed education scholarship and attendance incentive to the tune of Rs. 19 crore to about 1.40 lakh school and college going wards of beedi workers in the state during last year.

While education scholarship ranging from Rs. 250 to Rs. 8,000 per annum is provided to both boys and girls, the attendance incentive is given only to girl students of classes from V to VIII.

The Labour Welfare Organisation provided an annual scholarship of Rs. 250 to students of classes from I to IV; Rs. 500 to students of classes V to VIII; Rs. 700 to students of class IX; Rs. 1,400 to students of class X; and Rs. 2,000 to students of classes XI and XII. The department provided every year Rs. 3,000 to the wards of beedi workers pursuing diploma, under graduate and post graduate courses and Rs. 8,000 to those pursuing professional courses.

The total annual family income should not exceed Rs.10,000 per month for getting the education scholarship, D. Job Prince, Deputy Welfare Commissioner, Labour Welfare Organisation, Tirunelveli, told ‘The Hindu'.

To check the practice of girls in the school going age getting engaged in beedi rolling and encourage them to attend the schools, the Department is providing attendance incentive to the girls of classes V to XII. An incentive of Rs. 440 is given to each beneficiary at the rate of Rs. Two per day and is given to a maximum of 220 days.

During last year, education scholarship and attendance incentive worth Rs. 19 crore was disbursed to about 1.40 lakh beneficiaries of Tirunelveli; Vellore; Tiruvannamalai; Tiruchi, Erode, and Salem districts and Chennai city.

Mr. Job Prince said while scrutinising the applications for incentive and scholarship, the department noticed that some of them who were not involved in beedi rolling had applied for the same. To check this, from the academic year 2010-11, the wards have been directed to produce the beedi workers pass books and provident fund receipts to the officials when they come for verification of the applications. The scholarship will be sanctioned only if these documents were produced by the applicants, Mr. Job Prince said. The official will undertake the verification of the applications after duly informing the school authorities to enable the students to remain well prepared to produce the same, he added.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/20/stories/2011052059970100.htm

Beedi workers demand rise in wages

They are getting only Rs.50 for rolling 1,000 beedis

NIZAMABAD: Beedi rollers and packers, under the banner of Andhra Pradesh Beedi Workers' Union, took out a rally here on Saturday and later staged a dharna demanding the government to issue the final G.O in the place of draft notification given on November 30 last increasing their wages.

Addressing the gathering of beedi workers at the Collectorate, the union State president V. Krishna deplored that beedi workers were lowest paid amongst the working class in the State. While prices of all essential commodities were skyrocketing, the beedi workers were hardly getting Rs.50 for rolling 1,000 beedis, he said.

When the workers were suffering from different ailments rolling and packing beedis for year, the owners of beedi industries were amassing wealth, he said and pointed out that the managements were spending a maximum of Rs.199 for making Rs.1,000 beedis, but they were getting Rs.400 by selling them.

Plea to issue final G.O.

Coming down heavily on the government for not issuing the final G.O. to implement payment of Rs.145 for rolling 1,000 beedis, Rs.5,000 per month for sorters and staff members, Rs.7,000 for head clerks and Rs.10,000 for managers provided in the draft notification, he said that it had promised to bring in the GO within 60 days, but failed to keep its word.

The union's State general secretary M. Narender described the delay in issuance of GO as injustice to the working class.

Appealing to all the elected representatives to exert pressure on the government, he said eight lakh families depended on the beedi industry in the State.

The union district president Muthanna presided.

Source:The Hindu, Sunday, Apr 24, 2011

RESOURCE METERIAL

RESOURCE METERIAL

A Handbook on Labour Laws of India

Labour Rights and Labour Standards for Migrant Labour in India

For stranded migrants, a jail stint is the first step towards freedom

An immigrant’s travails highlight the challenges that workers stranded overseas face while trying to return home

Hyderabad: Durgam Dastagiri spent nearly five months trying to get thrown into a Saudi jail. It was the only way he could go home.

A slight, bird-like man with a neatly groomed moustache, Dastagiri is one of approximately 4.5 million Indian workers who have moved to countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), to take up semi-skilled jobs to support families in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Sometimes, the job is all that is promised. More often, it isn’t. And, because of the unique, almost repressive laws governing immigrant workers in most West Asian countries, many find themselves stranded.

“We’ve had cases of people who have been stuck not just for four and five years, but 18, 20 years. We ask them why they stayed so long and they say they didn’t know what else to do,” says Mehru Vesuvala, who works at Migrant Workers Protection Society in Bahrain. “They tried to leave and found that they could not.” Read More

Source:http://www.livemint.com/2011/05/19000236/For-stranded-migrants-a-jail.html?h=B