IMPHAL, Jan 28 : Life is not easy for the ordinary men and women on streets of Manipur today. A weak economy has ensured jobs are scarce, practically non-existent government schools have meant the poor are disempowered for the lack appropriate education and skills, the atmosphere for private entrepreneurship is in the pit with no regular electric power bad law and order situation, bad surface communication infrastructure etc.
Many have no choice other than turn to manual daily wage earners. An increasing percentage of workers in this unorganised sector, working in miserable conditions to make ends meet, are women.
A quick survey of the work force at the stone quarries and sand lifting zone along the Sekmai river which run parallel to the National Highway 39 all along Sekmai and Koubru Laikha, revealed this. Personal accounts of many of these women labourers are also touching.
Irom Gangarani Devi, 44, a resident of Khonghampat who spoke to IFP said she walked into this back breaking occupation not out of any choice, but was forced into it by circumstance and the compulsion to keep her family hearth burning for the sake of her children.
The burden on her shoulders is even more heavy because her husband is an alcoholic and does nothing to help her in her battle to keep the family from starvation.
On an average, she puts in 10 hours hard work a day and the duration is dependent on whether the river is dry or in spate. Typically she arrives at the river bed by 4 or 5 am to look for the day’s work site, and fortunately there is never a shortage of truck to be loaded with either stones or sand, she said. She returns home at dusk, sometimes 6pm or even 7pm.
Depending on the work she is able to get, in a day she earns between Rs. 50 to Rs. 150. But the work is exhausting, and upon return home, her entire body, especially her back ache excruciatingly, she said.
If two were to work together as a team, it is possible to earn as much as Rs. 400 in the peak season, she said. Unfortunately, her husband is a drunkard and does nothing to help her. Instead, daily he demands pocket money of Rs. 10 or Rs. 20 she said.
She has three children, and she is able to keep them from starving, but is helpless to buy them new clothes or save for rainier days, she lamented.
She sends her children to the local government school as she cannot afford private schools, and the government of India’s free school textbook scheme for below poverty line children has been a great help, she said.
However, it is not easy for her to raise annual admission fee for the children.The school headmaster is kind and seeing her condition, he exempted admission fee for her children last year, but she has been told that it would not be possible to be as lenient this year. This has made her work frantically for the extra money she said.
She never even imagined she would be in the occupation before she married, and when out of desperation she walked into it, she was out of place. Now, experience has taught her the skills needed. However, this is not an occupation for women, she said as it can get hazardous. Last year, while loading stones in a truck, one of the stones rolled down and injured a fellow woman labourer and the latter is still having problems moving her neck, she said.
Compared to Gangarani, another lady, Samurailatpam Usharani, 37, although in the same occupation, is much better off, because her husband also works with her.
Usharani’s husband is a Brahmin and was once a professional cook. However he decided to leave the profession as there is an increasing demand by clients to cook meat. The couple then rented an accommodation at Leikinthabi Shantipur and began working at the Sekmai river stone and sand loading about five years ago.
“We can make ends meet but we are not able to save,” Usharani said. “Moreover, we are always worried what would happen if one of us or both of us were to be ill even for a few weeks. For then there would be absolutely no income coming in, and we can end up sliding into the pit overwhelming us with the despair,” she added.
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