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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XIV. - Health and welfare of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

258 CHAPTER XIV, of dealing with the large number of new-comers attracted by oppor- tunities for employment. Employers’ Efforts. In the first two cases medical facilities have not expanded with anything like the necessary rapidity To meet the needs of the increased populations, and in most centres the civil hospitals and dispensaries and the municipal medical institutions are incapable of serving more than a proportion of those in their vicinity. This position has been relieved in certain areas by the assumption on the part of employers of responsibility for the provision of medical aid for their own employees. Some of the jute mills on the Hooghli, for example, have provided ad- mirably planned medical organisations ; these are used not only by the employees and their families, but by large numbers of persons uncon- nected with the industry. We have seen nothing in India to excel the medical organisation and hospital equipment provided by the Angus Jute Mill Company for their workers, and special tribute must be paid to the management of this industrial concern for their work in regard to medical attention and welfare. Many employers, whose industrial concerns were within reach of municipal and Government hospitals, have also made provision, often on a generous scale, for their own labour forces. Others have instituted small dispensaries attached to their works, sending patients suffering from serious illness to the local Government or municipal hospitals. In such cases the firm may either give a substantial annual donation to the hospital or pay the hospital charges of all its employees admitted for treatment. Still other industrial concerns have made no medical provision of any kind for their workers, their contention being that the whole responsibility for the provision of such services should properly lie with the municipalities or local bodies concerned. We believe that those employers who have taken a more humanitarian view have found that their action has had valuable effects on the efficiency of their establishments. Many of the medical organisations in industrial compounds are worthy of great praise and are clearly responsible for a considerable increase in the health and happiness of the workers and their families. Medical Facilities in New Areas. As regards enterprises of the third category, which pioneer in areas hitherto undeveloped, such as the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur and the Burma Corporation at Namtu, we are of opinion that, at least in the initial stage, the responsibility for medical aid must rest with the industry. It would obviously be impossible for either Government or a district board to accept immediate responsibility for medical and health facilities for a large newly transported population of this kind. This fact has been fully recognised in the two cases we have instanced, where large hospitals with generous medical and nursing staffs and equipment have been provided at the entire cost of the industries. Similar instances came to our notice in other parts of India.

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