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 XIV. - Health and welfare of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

HEALTH AND WELFARE. 251 We have throughout been greatly impressed by the importance of the part played by defects of dietary. The questions of nutrition and dietary are subjects of constant research in most Western countries, and not a few (Governments have deemed it advisable to found Institutes of Nutrition, in which the necessary investigations can be organised and carried out and through which co-ordination with outside research can be obtained. We visited the Deficiency Diseases Enquiry Laboratory at Coonoor, where Colonel McCarrison, I.M.S., under the auspices of the Indian Research Fund Association, has been engaged for some years past in nutritional researches. The Royal Commission on Agriculture has indicated the directions in which they consider his work should be linked up with agricultural research problems, and we support their recommendation that India should have an Institute of Nutrition of its own. While we were struck with the advan- ces which had already been made by Colonel McCarrison, it was obvious that his staff was quite insufficient for the purpose we have in view. The Institute should have a Director witha sufficient number of qualified assistants, so that the work so well begun canbe extended on a scale more commensurate with India’s needs. Publicity work should be a legitimate sphere of activity of such an Institute, because the Indian worker, both industrial and agricultural, requires guidance in regard to his diet. It should be impressed on all concerned that the health and, in a large measure, the happiness and contentment of the workers are bound up with this question, and that, to quote Colonel McCarrison, “ the output of work by the human machine is closely related to the quality of the food with which it is provided.” The propaganda material required for these purposes could best be prepared under the supervision of the Direc- tor of the Institute of Nutrition in consultation with provincial Public Health Departments. Markets and Co-operative Stores. We noticed a general lack of care over food supplies. In few industrial areas are the markets sufficient in number, and those we saw appeared to receive little sanitary supervision. All kinds of food grains, vegetables and fruit are exposed for sale in such a way as to become quickly contaminated, and in many areas are retailed on the road side and in the vicinity of the street gutters. In all urban and industrial areas the local authorities should construct sanitary Markets on convenient sites and take steps to ensure that the food brought there for sale is protected, as far as possible, from con- tamination. It would also be of advantage, at least in the larger industrial areas, for employers and trade unions to organise co-operative shops at which pure and clean food of all kinds could be obtained. The Managements of the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in Madras and the Burma Corporation in Namtu have made very successful experiments of this nature which are highly appreciated by their employees. The workers are advantaged not only in the quality of the food obtainable, but also in its cost in relation to general market prices,

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