Safety – why is it not there

A typical four storey apartment with a basement here in this semi-arid part of the world has to be dug nearly about twenty feet for its foundation pillars. The entire site is nowadays dug by an excavator. About ten years back it would have been larger gangs of human strength. Right now there are at least twenty men working at that depth, laying the foundation concrete or doing minor excavation works. The site is also a temporary habitat for their families too, making the total a larger number - about fifty. There are kids roaming around, about half naked. They all take their bath at night because the site is otherwise surrounded by four and five storey apartments on all its eight sides. Without any internal walls they have a big kitchen in one corner made out of neatly surfaced mud floor and kids are rolling, jumping, laughing all about. The rest of the site is a hazardous place by any simple construction standards but this is where these kids learn to handle the struggle they’ve got to face when they grow up. In the cool confines of this big ditch these few families sleep under the open skies of a free country and at day time they work or loiter within. The twisted and deformed reinforcement bars jetting out of pillars look like a work of art as they look like sculptures, each similar in character and purpose, yet different.

These migrant labourers have this job at hand, which they are free to choose because there aren’t many options. It looks like a happy place unless we impose the specifications of modern living standards in this analysis. If the site wasn’t a deep ditch like this, life here would have been different - the temporary inhabitants would have needed walls or plastic sheets. From a distance I could see the site contractor standing on the edge barting loud instructions and himself passing down long cut steel bars in the pit. There are occasional slips, and as a consequential action some large chunks of loose earth and stone fall. The solid bricks miss the worker but his head couldn’t escape a football sized clay lump finally crumbling into pieces after the contact. The guy then scrabbles his head a few times for next few minutes and is energetically back to work. Next to him, about a feet away, are reinforcement bars jetting out at his eye level. The work of art.

The labourers don’t mind this living condition because the contractor gives them the job. They try to live the best out of available, so expecting the contractor to supply helmets and toilets is probably little too much for the money he earns. Unless his employer, the builder, who is selling each flat in this building for a sum this currently resident family might earn in their lifetime, does something out of a haughty gesture or concern. Perhaps again it’s expecting a bit too much from him because he may argue he has competition right there then. I hope he will plead ignorance. Or maybe, the larger God the government, or the indifferent municipality does something to regulate – but then at what price and what do they get in return?

Certification and interaction

Thanks for your comment to the previous post Pankaj, you are my first one. Thought a reply would suit better with a fresher post... so, this. And, I like your sublime statement - “… a bundle of intelligence and ignorance at the same time…”

On certification - I realise that about six years ago, the Gujarat Government had initiated a certification programme for masons in the state - the first ever in the country. I recall, if the mason would pass the certification exam, the government reimbursed the facilitating agency or the mason himself with 2000 rupees. This amount I assume was to cover for the costs incurred in preparation for the certification exam. Obviously this amount wasn’t enough because a significant higher number of masons were failing the tests therefore dropping out of the fray. Compounding this was the fact that the certification test required the masons to be literate! One knows how badly calculated some government programmes can be. Now, I don’t hear here much of this programme, and not sure what its status is now - so maybe somebody reading this can throw a light, or I will have to drive down sometime to Gandhinagar at the employment department’s daftar to figure out. Anyhow, there is a lesson already available.

These masons’ interacting sounds like a cool idea. Sure some interaction session can be worked out. Bundelhand to Madhepura is just an overnight sleep train journey away; perhaps an exchange of ten from each side ?