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CHAPTER XXIII
Housing Conditions.
As Rangoon acts as a labour pool for the whole province
there is a large floating population in addition to the resident
labour force. The number of = Indians permanently employed is
very small compared with the total numbers. Housing is provided
by employers for a substantial proportion of the former, generally
in the form of barracks. Some of these are of a fair standard,
but much of the accommodation ib capable of considerable improve-
ment. The barracks are subject to inspection by the Corporation,
but that authority rarely insists on enforcement of its own regula-
tions. In many cases the buildings are two-storeyed and arranged back
to back, whilst sanitation is defective. In spite of these defects, they
are superior to anything else available for labour in Rangoon, but they
are very different from the type of housing to which the worker is acous-
tomed. The Corporation has provided houses for about 209) of its
employees and proposes to extend its building programme until it has
accommodated 609, of its staff, whilst the Rangoon Port Commissioners
have also built quarters for a proportion of their permanent employees.
Generally speaking, temporary employees and casual labourers find
shelter in buildings registered as lodging-houses by the Municipality.
Most of these places are situated in the heart of the city, where land is
expensive and rents are high, and in 1928 there were 1,659 such houses
licensed for 75,777 persons. There is a large. population for whom no
proper housing is available, and these overcrowd the lodging-houses
beyond the licensed limits. A lodging-house usually consists of a single
room without windows or ventilation openings and with no sanitary
arrangements. The room is leased on payment of a lump sum to a gang
maistry, who crowds in as many labourers as he can. Each tenant pays
from Rs. 2 to Rs. 4 rent per month. The committee which reported on

the Public Health of Rangoon in 1926 describes a room in which were
counted 50 persons, although the number allowed by municipal regula-
bion was only nine. “ Every inch of floor Space is occupied by a sleep-
ing human being and others are to be found on shelves and bunks along
the walls”. In a number of houses the occupants include some women,
and so-called” married quarters consist of a small portion of the room
screened off with gunny bags. Interior partitions of different kinds have
the effect of reducing light and ventilation still further. The same room
may also be occupied by two sets of tenants, one at night and
the other, whose work takes them out at night, during the day. The
standard of accommodation in the Corporation bye-laws is by no means
exacting, being 36 square feet per person. This is reduced to 24 square
feet where ventilation is ample and an open space exists round the build-
ing. Under these regulations the average room, about 124’ Xx 50’ in
size, provides for fourteen persons, but if it were occupied half the time
by one gang and half by another, there would be no grounds for prosecu-
tion, although 28 persons were in occupation. In the hot weather condi-
tions may not be so detrimental to health as these figures would seem to
imply, because most, of the tenants use the room merely as a place for