......... waiting for employment
Metropolitan Mumbai is the economic capital of India. People from all over India migrate to Mumbai and its suburban town to seek employment opportunities. Its dream city for people as it provides employment opportunities for all sort of people. People come to the city with a lot of aspiration and dream. Industrialisation leads the migration in urban areas. But this dream city does not provide employment to everybody. Kalyan is one of the suburban cities of a centre line of Mumbai railway. Every day of every season the crowd of four to five hundred labours gathered at Khadakapada Chowk of Kalyan city. The crowd of labour gathered here to get work on daily wages basis.
They are unskilled, unorganised and illiterate labour. These labours are known as Naka Kamgar or Bigari Majdur or Hamal which means wage labours. Most of them arrived from various parts of Maharashtra, Gujrat, Uttar Pradesh,Andhra
Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka state. They belong to the age group of sixteen to fifty-five. Every day gathered around 7:30 am. They wait for the contractor - a person who will give them an opportunity to work. Usually, the contractors hire them for work at a road construction site, building construction site, water pipeline, drainage work etc. These contractors supply the labours to various construction lines.
According to Fifty-Five years old Uttam Londhe – “Every day we gathered here with a hope to get work for the survival of a day. But most of the time we get disappointed. From morning we wait here up to 12:00 noon. Sometimes we wait up to 3:00 PM”
Fifty-seven years old Kappy Bansode has mentioned – “Male remuneration is varied from female labour. Male labour daily wages are Rs. 500/- whereas female daily wages are Rs. 400/- and working hours are 09:00 am to 05:00 pm. All of them are reside as a tenant in very tiny rooms of Kalyan. Forty years old Jagdevi Rathod belongs to Nomadic tribe of Banjari. She has migrated from Gulbarga of Karnataka state. Thirty Years old Savitri Rathod brings her six years elder daughter at the workplace to look after her newborn baby girl.
Fifty-two years old Irjan Narayan migrated from Uttar Pradesh said –“No work means no money. No money means no food.”
Hamal Kailash Paikrao told –“Our life is very unpredictable. There is no guarantee of work, money, food, shelter. We are ready to work. We also want to give a good life to our children but we can’t afford it”
Forty years old Santosh Vani said - " They are living in a rental room. They are not able to fulfil the basic requirement of their family. Due to uncertain employment, they can not provide food, clothes, water, electricity, education to their children."
Fifty-five years old Shivaji Dalavi, Thirty-two years old Sanjay Saindane, Ramdas Bali Jadhav, Savitri Rathod and eyes of every labour were depicted the pathetic conditions of their lives.
Forty years old Santosh Vani said - " They are living in a rental room. They are not able to fulfil the basic requirement of their family. Due to uncertain employment, they can not provide food, clothes, water, electricity, education to their children."
Fifty-five years old Shivaji Dalavi, Thirty-two years old Sanjay Saindane, Ramdas Bali Jadhav, Savitri Rathod and eyes of every labour were depicted the pathetic conditions of their lives.
At Shivaji chowk of Kalyan majority of the labour population has migrated from Andhra Pradesh in search of employment. These migrated labours are scattered in every part of the city. Every morning they gathered with a hope to get work. They are struggling for survival. They don't have a labour union. They are not aware of human rights. They are deprived of all basic human rights. In this contemporary era, human reached the moon. The revolution has occurred in Information and technology. In this twenty-first century, India is achieving success in every sphere of life. On the contrary, there are notable people who are struggling for their livelihood. As per the census, there are four to five hundred million unorganised labours are there in India. We can’t overlook the farmer’s suicide, migration of landless labours from rural to urban. These labours are illiterate. They can’t reach the government but government can reach them and make them aware of various government policies, various schemes, skill development projects for a better life of these deprived people. The government agencies must implement their schemes by adopting the proper strategies and mechanism to reach every labour of India. The children of workers are not able to reach the school but the government can take the mobile education to these children. The government can bring them to the mainstream of society.
