Intervention with unorganised labourers is underway through PEARL (People’s Empowerment for Accessing Right to Livelihood) in the outskirts of Kanpur city, the largest city of Uttar Pradesh. The outskirts of Kanpur are developing fast and large constructions in the form of multiplexes, malls, etc., are coming up. Construction workers and rickshaw pullers are living at different locations in these localities either alone or with their families.
The PEARL Project covers 3,000 unorganised sector workers (2,000 construction workers and 1,000 rickshaw pullers workers at 12 locations.
Construction Labourers belong to the poor and deprived sections of the society. They possess no or very little land and therefore have to migrate for most parts of the year to different areas in search of income and employment. When they migrate the entire family migrates and they migrate in bulk. Being non-residents, they are not allowed to avail of a number of services or gain access to them.
The activity is in initial phase as it began in July 2009. So far meetings and focus group discussions have been held to understand in depth community’s situation on migration, health and treatment, work and wages, habits, education, social security, awareness on government schemes etc. This has helped WSS to understand their problems and also facilitate to formulate strategies for future actions.
For solving immediate problems of the community the following actions have been taken:
- Applications filed with Municipal Corporation for cleanliness in community locality.
- A very small fraction of the children of construction labours study in government primary schools and the rest don’t study at all. Applications have been given to the head masters (by the parents of children through the organisation) of such schools for providing scholarship.
- Applications given to Kanpur Jal Sansthan on behalf of community for providing water connection at their place.
Process to form Union and Economic Group with targeted community has been initiated. Capacity building of the community members has also been done. Economic groups have started taking shape.
Beedi Shramik
The organization also works for the welfare of a particular segment of unorganized sector the beedi shramik through delivery of welfare services.