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 XXI. - Wages on planatations

Collection:: Economics Books

~ CHAPTER XXII. the gardens of the group. In addition she would be responsible for the development of child welfare work, although to ensure success in this direction trained health visitors would also be necessary. We appreciate the difficulty of obtaining women doctors, but successful beginnings have been made elsewhere, and, if a sustained effort were made, we have no doubt that in time suitable applicants would become available. Sick Benefits. On certain plantations the worker, when ill in hospital, is given free food, and a gratuity is paid to a relation acting as sick attendant. We recommend that the practice of giving free food be adopted in all plantation hospitals. The gratuity might also be made generally appli- cable, except where a central hospital with a nursing staff makes other attendants unnecessary. Maternity Benefit Schemes. ; In many plantations it is already the practice to give maternity benefit to women workers. In some cases a lump sum is given to the mother after the child is born; in others an allowance is given for 4 to 8 weeks before and for 4 to 8 weeks after her confinement. In one plantation in the Dooars the manager issues the benefit in monthly instalments, and continues an allowance of Re.1 per month for a period of 10 months, provided the child is brought by the mother to the plantation hospital for inspection by the medical officer. Representatives of the planters’ organisations gave it as their opinion that legislation was unnecessary because the maternity allowances now given voluntarily were sufficient. This may be so in some plantations ; but in certain cases allowances are considerably below the average and in some are non-existent. Inorder to secure the general adop- tion of a satisfactory scheme, some form of legislative compulsion is necessary. The one we advocate below is designed to secure a reason- able level of benefits together with assistance in the form in which it is most needed. We do not anticipate the reduction of existing allowances, even should the minimum provided by legislation be lower than that now given voluntarily, because most managers realise the value of such expen- diture. We propose that the law should require the employer to give a sash benefit to the mother, which should ordinarily take the form of half her daily wage for a period of 4 weeks before and 4 weeks after child- birth. In addition a bonus of Rs. 5 should be given, except where the employer has provided the skilled services of a woman doctor and a trained midwife, in which case any woman refusing to avail herself of these skilled services should not be eligible for the bonus. We believe that this addition to the benefit would go far to overcome the prejudice in favour of the untrained dai. If a woman is in good health, she need not be precluded from working during the 4 weeks before child birth, provided her allowances are not reduced, but no woman should be allowed to resume work until 4 weeks after her child is born. In the case of plantation labour, the condition of a “ qualifying period ” of employ- ment required in other industries could safely be dispensed with.

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