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, 275 Madura Mills Company which has erected a settlement of 176 quarters. In Coimbatore and Tuticorin no provision of any kind has been made either by municipal councils or by employers. Many of the poorer classes, seeking in vain for accommodation, squat on private land and build flimsy shelters to serve as homes. When the landowners’ demands for ground rent become excessive, these people move to other sites equally unsuitable and precarious. Eventually scattered cheries spring up where overcrowding and bad sanitation produce their usual deleterious effects. For the most part these colonies receive little atten- tion from the authorites. More often than not the primary necessities of life are altogether inadequate. Even where piped water supplies are available, the nearest taps may be far distant, so that water is obtained from unprotected surface wells. The lack of roads gives municipal cleans- ing staffs an excuse for their neglect of conservancy. For want of drain- age and in the absence of latrines streams of sewage filter over the pathways. It is not surprising that epidemic disease frequently mani- fests itself in these plague-spots and that both the sickness and mortality rates of their inmates reach high levels. Employers’ Schemes in Madras. The Labour Department of the Madras Government and one or two co-operative building societies have built a number of houses in certain areas, but these efforts have had little effect on the main prob- lem. The one pleasing feature of the situation in the Presidency is the housing scheme carried out by the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills Com- pany in Madras City. This Company has-already built three villages with £59 houses and another village of 200 houses is in course of construction. The usual type of house consists of a living room, a kitchen and a washing place with a front verandah and yard. Thelay-out is made as spacious as possible and all roads are lighted with electricity, although lighting is not carried into the houses. A piped water supply is obtained from the muni- cipal mains and all charges for lighting, conservancy and water are paid by the Company. A nominal rent of Re. 1-8-0 per month is charged, and neither sub-letting nor occupation by tenants in other employ is permitted. We have inspected these model villages and consider that the improved housing conditions and the new opportunities for recreation are bound to make their occupants more healthy and contented. Every credit must be given to the Company for its efforts, but the difficulty of obtain- mg suitable sites and the high cost of land and buildings make provision on an adequate scale a slow and expensive undertaking. Only 10 per tent of the mill workers have so far been accommodated, and the great majority still live in houses rented from private landlords or crowd into huts erected by themselves. Cawnpore. Cawnpore is densely overcrowded and insanitary, the labouring Population numbering about 90,000 in all. Three-quarters of the town '8 made up of private bustees or hatas, which are covered with houses ther unfit for human habitation or in sreat need of improvement,

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