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, 283 sums which can be repaid in ten months, and construction is supervised in order to ensure good design and the use of good materials. We consider that ample scope exists for a wider use by employers of these methods ; they are applicable to many industrial areas in different parts of the country. Railway Quarters. The Railway Board has laid down that its general policy is to provide quarters where, for special reasons, it is necessary to do so, and where conditions are such that private enterprise does not adequately meet housing demands. Railway administrations can acquire land for building schemes under the Land Acquisition Act, and we were inform- ed that every endeavour is made to secure sites situated in healthy locali- ties. Expenditure up to 1st April 1929, was Rs. 24-81 crores, while the expenditure during the 4 years ending 1st April 1929, was 4-85 crores and the next two years’ programme contemplates a further expenditure of 2 crores. Even so, considerable numbers of the railway staffs are not pro- vided for, and these live in rented houses owned by private landlords. At wayside stations only a very small proportion of the staff is not provided with railway quarters, and all staff employed on construction projects are housed in temporary quarters especially erected for the purpose. The available accommodation is fully utilised, although gangmen recruited locally prefer to live in their own villages. Rent is charged except in the case of the lowest grades who are normally given free quarters. Generally men who are liable to be called upon at any time without notice are also provided with free quarters and, where an employee is entitled to free quarters and none are available, a house rent allowance is given. Up to the present, as a general rule workshop staffs have not been given quarters as most of the workshops are within reach of large towns. On some railways, however, a proportion of the workshop staff is provided with houses owned or leased by the railways. The Burma railway administration states that 78%, of the workshop employees at Myitnge and 389, of the locomotive shop staff at Insein are so housed. On the Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway 92 quartershave been provided in Bombay for the lower paid workshop staff and arrangements have been made to lease from the Development Department certain chawls at Worli to accommodate another 400 workmen. Provision alse exists for housing a large percentage of the workshop employees at Khargpur by the Bengal Nagpur Railway and at Golden Rock, Trichi- nopoly, by the South Indian Railway. The Bengal and North Western Railway have a colony at Gorakhpur for men employed in the workshops. The Railway Board has recently revised its policyin regard to the grant of free quarters and rent on state-aided railways. Under the new policy all future entrants, except men in inferior service, will have to Pay rent. Further, each class of quarters is pooled, and rent is assessed and levied at a rate calculated to yield not less than 4%, on the capital cost of each class, excluding cost of land. This percentage represents interest and costs of maintenance only, and depreciation charges will be met from general railway revenues. In actual practice the rent charged

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