Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

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 XV. - Housing of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

HOUSING OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER. 271 classes live in one-roomed tenements. Corresponding figures for other cities such as Cawnpore, Howrah, Calcutta and Madras are unobtain- able, but our observations showed that nearly all the workers live in single rooms. Mortality Rates, The available statistics give little or no indication of the effects of overcrowding and congestion on the town-dweller, although it is common knowledge that both sickness and mortality rates are enhanced thereby. Another index of health conditions is the infantile mortality rate. High infantile mortality is closely associated with ignorance and poverty, as the figures for the general population, amounting to 200 to 250 per 1,000 births, show only too clearly. The infantile mortality rate for Bombay city in 1929 was 298 per 1,000 births and recent reports on the health conditions of Madras and Rangoon give rates of 300 to 350 per 1,000 for certain parts of these cities. But the common custom of expect- ant mothers returning to their villages for the birth of their infants introduces a vitiating factor in the statistics of urban and industrial areas, the effects of which it is usually difficult to estimate. An enquiry carried out at our suggestion by the Bombay Labour Office in 1930 shows that this factor is by no means negligible; for, ina group of 2,458 births investigated, the infantile death rate was increased from 230 to 268 per 1,000 births when it was taken into account. These large additions to an already excessive mortality cannot, therefore, be wholly attributed to the evil effects of urban life, although there can be little doubt that they are partly responsible. Housing in Urban and Industrial Areas. Although we were repeatedly informed that the workers’ houses in urban and industrial areas were no worse than those to be found in agricultural villages, we neither accept this as u statement of fact nor think it relevant as a standard of comparison. In the villages the houses may be dark and unventilated and their surroundings insanitary, but most of them have some sort of enclosure or courtyard which provides light, air and a certain degree of privacy. In the urban and industrial areas, on the other hand, cramped sites, the high value of land and the necessity for the worker to live in the vicinity of his work have all tended to intensify congestion and overcrowding. In the busiest centres the houses are built close together, eave touching eave, and frequently back to back in order to make use of all the available space. Indeed, space is so valuable that, in place of streets and roads, narrow winding lanes pro- vide the only approach to the houses. Neglect of sanitation is often evidenced by heaps of rotting garbage and pools of sewage, whilst the absence of latrines enhances the general pollution of air and soil. Houses, many without plinths, windows and adequate ventilation, usually consist of a single small room, the only opening being a doorway often too low to enter without stooping. In order to secure some privacy, old kerosene tins and gunny bags are used to form screens which further restrict the entrance of light and air. In dwellings such as these, human

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