Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VI. - Seasonal factories

Collection:: Economics Books

76 CHAPTER VI, factories are strictly seasonal, and constitute much the most impor- tant group. The same is true of the great majority of jute presses and of nearly all the factories shown in this class under others ”. These include indigo, lac, coffee and rubber factories, factories engaged in ground-nut decorticating and one or two others. Of the tea factories, those in North India (constituting over 90 per cent. of the total number) are strictly seasonal; the South Indian factories work nearly all the year round. Some factories in this group, and especially many of the ground-nut decorticating factories in Madras, deal with more than one product at different seasons. In the second class we nclude factories falling in groups which are mainly seasonal, but which include a number of perennial factories. Some groups are mainly seasonal in one province and mainly perennial in another. The big group here is the rice mills, which vary from small mills working short seasons to large and virtually perennial factories. The group “ others ” includes flour mills, tile and brick factories, ice and aerated water factories and a few others. As a rule, the season tends to be longer in this than in the first class and may extend to the greater part of the year. The third class includes: the essentially perennial factory industries. The precise number of seasonal factories thus depends on the definition of “ seasonal ”, and even when a definition has been adopted, exact figures cannot be given. We deal with the ques- tion of demarcation later, and can merely attempt a very rough estimate here. Taking as the definition of a * seasonal ” factory one which normally works for not more than half the days of the year, we estimate that, of the 8,000 odd factories at present registered, rather more than half are seasonal. On the same definition, possibly 300.000 workers are engaged in the seasonal factories. General Characteristics. In the paragraphs which follow, we endeavour to indicate the mere important characteristics of work in the leading groups of seasonal factories. The main feature of nearly all the industries is that the workers are still essentially agriculturalists, and the great majority live in their village homes. The degree of skill required is seldom great and the proportion of women employed is fairly large. The factories are not concentrated. but are naturally scattered over the areas producing the crops with which they deal. The small-scale factory is the rule and the large one the exception. The workers are generally quite unorganised and wages tend to be low. Cotton Ginning and Pressing. As the table indicates, cotton ginning and pressing factories form much the most important group. These factories are all strictly seasonal and are found mainly in Bombay, the Central Provinces, Madras, the Punjab, the United Provinces and Ajmer-Merwara. The length of the working period varies, being little more than 2 months in some areas, and running at times to 7 months in others. Cotton is ginned in some provinces in India in every month of the vear: in North

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