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, . 277 tion and, in the present state of the law, compulsion cannot be exercised it favour of a company or private association desiring to start a housing scheme. Employers in Cawnpore have found it nearly impossible to obtain suitable land for their settlements at anything like a reasonably economic rate. The Improvement Trust Enquiry Committee proposed that build- ing land should be made available to the mills on a 90 years’ lease, on payment of a premium equivalent to the acquisition cost plus overhead charges, and that the loans from Government should be repaid in equated instalments extending over a period of 30 years. Both land and build- ings would be mortgaged to Government as security for repayment. The Upper India Chamber of Commerce, which has long advocated the necessity for facilitating acquisition of land for industrial dwellings and for the free provision of water, lighting and sanitation by the Municipality, assured the Enquiry Committee that, if Government were willing to lend on these terms, some of the leading mills would build settlements for their workmen in the near future. Ahmedabad. The areas occupied by the working classes in Ahmedabad present pictures of terrible squalor. Nearly 929, of the houses are one- roomed ; they are badly built, insanitary, ill-ventilated and overcrowded, whilst water supplies are altogether inadequate and latrine accommoda- tion is almost entirely wanting. Resulting evils are physical deteriora~ tion, high infant mortality and a high general death rate. Thirty-five of the textile mills have provided chawls for about 16%, of their employees, but in only one or two cases is the accommodation of a reasonable stand- ard, and sanitary arrangements are frequently inadequate. The quar- bers built by the Asoka and Calico Mills are perhaps the best. In the former case, a settlement adjacent to the mill provides accommodation in the form of chawls for about 1,100 out of 2,500 workers. The chawls, laid out in groups of eight, are interspersed with gardens and trees. One type of house has a single room, a verandah and a courtyard, whilst another and more expensive type consists of two rooms and a verandah, Some years ago the latter Company built a colony of 48 tenements, in which each house contains a room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a common verandah. The lay-out provided open spaces, and gardens and other amenities were intended, but these houses have remained unpopular because of their distance from the town. In several cases the mill oper- atives will not use the accommodation provided for them and the houses of one mill are regularly occupied by operatives of other mills. The housing conditions of textile workers in Sholapur are much better than in Bombay or Ahmedabad and sub-letting does not exist there to any large extent. Nagpur. Conditions in this city are neither better nor worse than those of Some of the other areas already mentioned, but special reference must be made to the excellent scheme being carried out by the management of the Empress Mills to provide their workers with decent homes and with

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