This presentation focuses on, Bangle making, Agarbatti (incense stick) making. Beedi Making.Trades in the Old City of Hyderabad, India—which can be characterised as home based work in the Informal sector.

1. Women and
Children's work in the
Unorganised sectors
in Hyderabad
Rekha Pande
University of Hyderabad

2. Purani Haveli

3. Developing World and
Liberalization
• The economies of the developing world are moving
towards liberalization and free markets.
• The ideology and the guiding dialogues in the global
world is the movement towards capitalism.
• The free play of markets, liberalization, privatization
and competition have become the key words in the
path towards globalization.
• This is followed by the withdrawal of the state from
more and more welfare oriented activities

4. India and the New
Economic Policy
• India adopted the New Economic Policy in
1991.
• The World Bank gave substantial loans to tide
over the crisis.
• The human development in India prior to this
was characterized by low levels of attainment
and sharp regional and gender disparities.

5. Poverty and income disparity
• As the global opportunities continue to
be unevenly distributed, the
consequence is, poverty.
• The worst hit in this transformation is
the unorganized sector, which is already
marked with income disparity and
dominated by the poor and under
privileged and women.

6. Women and Informal
sector
• Like most South Asian countries, India is
characterised by the involvement of a large
proportion of the population, primarily women, in the
informal labour sectors.
• Many of these are home based workers whose
difficulties are exacerbated by very low wages,
involuntary migration, the need to enter into other
allied activities, and poverty.
• Women in this sector who carry the double burden
of poverty and discrimination.

7. Women in Unorganized
sectors
• India has a labor force of 300 million, majority of
which are women.
• 90% of this labor force belongs to unorganized
sectors.
• The number of women workers engaged in
unorganized sectors increased from 94% in
1971 to 96% in 1991.
• Women here continue to be invisible in
economic statistics and are ignored by
legislators and planners.

8. Different trades
• Bangle making.
• Agarbatti (incense stick) making.
• Beedi Making.
• Trades in the Old City of Hyderabad, India—which
can be characterised as home based work in the
Informal sector.

9. More women in
unorganised sectors
• This sector is
characterised by ease of
entry, reliance on
indigenous sources,
family ownership of
enterprises, small scale of
operation, intensive
labour and adapted
technology, workers with
skills acquired outside
the formal school system,
and an unregulated and
competitive market.

10. Casulisation
• Many women working in this sector suffer from a
lack of opportunity to work, low and
discriminatory wages, and exploitative
conditions resulting in casualisation.
• They further lack social security, face
occupational health hazards, and do not have
access to new technologies, skills or knowledge.
• Though not a homogeneous group by way of
caste, class or economic activity, deprivation
and discrimination are common factors
experienced by all workers in this sector.

11. Global Gender Gap
Report
The Switzerland-based World
Economic Forum (WEF) has
placed India in 112th
position, in a list of 134
countries, in its latest report
‘Global Gender Gap Index
2010’.
The report measures equity
in four fundamental areas --
economic participation and
opportunity, educational
attainment, health and
survival, and political
empowerment.

12. Problems women face
• Women who carry the
double burden of
poverty and
discrimination.
• Migration and entry
into other allied
activities leads to rural
poverty.
• Globalization, has
complicated the issue.

13. Contribution of the
informal sector
• Estimates of the size, contribution, and composition
of the informal sector vary widely according to the
size of enterprises considered, the inclusion or
otherwise of agriculture, and the degree of women's
informal work included in calculations.
• In India, the term 'informal sector' does not appear in
official statistics nor in the National Accounts
Statistics (NAS).
• The terms used in the Indian NAS are 'organised'
and 'unorganised' sectors. The organised sector
comprises enterprises for which statistical data are
available from official budget documents or reports.

14. Home based worker
• Home based work is not an
analytical category. Instead,
complex relations of
production and distribution
are characterised by the
producer being neither wage
worker nor self employed but
something in between.
• The legal definition of worker
and self employed in India is
drawn from western liberal
assumptions of an
autonomous and self-
contained individual, a
concept which cannot be
applied adequately to home
based producers.

15. Kinds of Home based
work
• Home based workers can
be divided into three
categories:
• 1.independent producer,
• 2.dependent producer
who works at home but
who relies on a
subcontractor for raw
material
• 3.wage worker who works
on the premises of her
employer.

16. India Map

17. Hyderabad
• The section of Hyderabad ,now referred to as the Old
City, was planned nearly 400 years ago.
• At that time, Golconda Fort, the then headquarters of
the Qutub Shahi Kings, was unable to contain the
growing population within the fort premises and
hence there was a need to expand.
• The new city was planned on the road running east
from Golconda as far as Masulipatnam, the famous
Andhra eastern seaport, in order to link trade and
commerce routes with the urban centres.

18. Hyderabad , 400 years
back
• It was then divided by main intersecting highways into four quarters. The
north-western quarter was reserved for the royal palace, with the east
allotted to the nobility. The remainder of the city, divided into 12 mohallas
(localities) spread over an area of 10 square miles, was inhabited by the
common people.
• Besides nearly 14,000 shops, there were mosques, hammams (public
baths), Ashoor khanas (a mourning place for Shias to shed tears for the
martyrdom of Hussain), langarkhanas (to distribute food to the poor), Dar-
ul-Shifa (public hospital), and sarais (guest houses or bungalows where
travellers, traders, missionaries and men of fine arts assembled from
different corners of the world after long and arduous journeys).
• Gardens also adorned many of these buildings.
• Within no time Hyderabad grew into an important trade centre whose
major exports included diamonds, textiles, sugar, iron and spices, and
which imported commodities such as Arabian horses, pearls, porcelain
and carpets.
• The city went into decline following a decision by the conquering Mughals
to shift the capital to Aurangabad in 1687, which was then the new centre
of political and commercial activity.

20. Hyderabad in 21st cen
• Today in the twenty-first century, the Old City of
Hyderabad is a high density population area divided
into Circles I, II, and III.
• The majority of the people are Muslims and there
have been intermittent outbreaks of communal
conflict.
• Hyderabad was subjected to twin blasts arising from
sectarian conflict.

21. Hyderabad today
Political unrest has been
accompanied by increasing
mobility among the
residents of Hyderabad.
In the twenty-first century,
more and more people from
the area have begun taking
jobs in the Gulf countries,
but very little of the money
has found its way back into
the old city.

22. Old city vs slum
• The increase in population and growing urbanisation
have both taken a toll leaving an overpopulated slum
area.
• The term 'slum' is used here in the context of the
operational definition provided by the United Nations
expert group, UN-HABITAT. This organisation designates
a slum as an area that combines to various extents the
following characteristics: inadequate access to safe
water; inadequate access to sanitation and other
infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing;
overcrowding; and insecure residential status.
• To these one might add the low socioeconomic status of
residents.

23. Hyderabadi Bangles
• The harsh reality of the beautiful bangles for which
Hyderabad is famous is that they are the product of
the exploited labour of women and children.
• There are more than 500 shops flanking either side
of the world famous Charminar today selling their
wares.
• Hyderabad is an amazing mix of the ancient and
modern, embodied in one of the oldest shopping
centres in the city, the Lad Bazaar, where both
bangles ,agarbattis and beedis are sold along with a
large number of other goods.

24. Bangle production
• Bangle production takes place both at karkhanas as well
as in homes.
• By and large, the houses in the Old City are very small,
generally with one room or, rarely, two rooms, including a
kitchen. Bathrooms are either very small or non-existent.
After the daily chores are completed and food cooked for
the day, many of these houses are converted in small
karkhanas to produce bangles.
• Bangle making requires a furnace to burn constantly
therefore the tiny spaces where the trade occurs are very
hot and dusty. While generally well lit, rooms are filled
with the smell of burning chemicals.

26. 4 steps in bangle making
•
Preparing an organic mould from vegetable based glue
and colouring this as required.
• Giving the coloured glue the shape of a bangle with the
help of metal moulds or brass bangles
• Refining and perfecting the shape of the bangle with the
heat of the small furnaces
• Finally, embedding creatively arranged and designed
coloured stones into the bangle to enhance the beauty of
the final product. These stones are heated on the furnace

28. • The more intricate the
design, the higher the
value of the bangle.
• At the time of marriage,
bangles are given to a
Muslim bride by both her
own family and by her in-
laws, thus creating a heavy
demand for these during
the marriage season.
• The stones used for
bangle-making are not
indigenous but are
imported from Austria,
Germany and France.
.
The intricate
Bangle is sold for
any thing
between Rs. 450
and
Rs. 4000 per pair

29. Agarbatti making
incense sticks)making, is one of the
flourishing trades in the Old City.
Out-sourcing is common in this
trade, women and children deal only
with the agents who provide the
material for making the paste and the
sticks.
The sale of incense sticks increases
during the festival season.

30. Five steps in agarbatti
making
• Agarbatti making is done in
five steps as follows:
cutting the bamboo sticks
into thin pieces or slices
• putting paste over the
bamboo slice or stick
• drying the agarbatti
• perfuming and packaging
the agarbatti under different
labels.

31. The factory owner
• Large factory owners generally outsource the bulk of the
production to contractors who have the work done by
women and girls.
• These workers are involved in the first four steps of
production.
• However, perfuming and packaging occurs at the factory.
• While men and boys are not involved in production, they
may be involved in the factory packaging and
transportation of the finished incense sticks.

32. The Contractor
• Contractors give the work of producing large quantities of
lower quality sticks mainly to home-based workers.
• Home-based agarbatti workers are provided with the raw
materials associated with agarbatti production: bamboo sticks,
jigat powder (a chemical mixed with saw dust) and charcoal
for rolling.
• The equipment used is a low wooden board three feet square
in size around which the workers squat to roll the sticks.
• The contractor then supplies the rolled raw agarbattis to
factories for drying, perfuming and packaging. The agarbattis
are finally separated and priced according to their perfumes
and packaging.

33. Features of the trade
• Women here work both
in karkhanas and in
homes.
• The women and children
told us they preferred to
finish their household
chores and then come
together in a karkhana to
work since they can
spend this time chatting
with friends.

34. Work Environment
• Unlike the hot and dusty
workplaces of the bangle
trade, the big and small
karkhanas are generally
neat and tolerably clean.
• They, are very small and
badly lit.
• There are no crèche
facilities and women are
generally not encouraged
to bring small children to
karkhanas.

35. Girl’s labour
• Only women work as agarbatti
rollers although they are often
assisted by girls.
• Since there is a strong belief
that children have small and
nimble fingers and can cut very
thin slices, the labour of
children ranging from five to
ten years is generally preferred
for this work.
• Unfortunately this belief is a
myth which conceals the
exploitation of the children as a
source of cheap labour.

36. Children's work
• Cutting the bamboo sticks is done with a blade on a
small wooden platform provided by the contractor. The
thinner the agarbatti, the better is its value.
• Making the paste is regarded as a specialised skill and
children generally do not take part in this aspect of
production.
• However, they do assist in rolling the paste around the
incense stick. In addition to thin bamboo sticks used for
agarbatti.
• children also cut thicker sticks which are used for eating
hand-made ice creams and fruits.

37. Wages
• Agarbatti rollers are paid on a piece-rate basis. Workers
in Hyderabad are paid at a rate of Rs. 9 per kilogram of
the agarbatti paste.
• However, pay also depends on the quality of stick. If the
incense stick is thin then women are paid Rs. 9 for
making 1200 agarbattis.
• If the sticks are thick then they are only paid Rs. 6 for
1200 agarbattis.
• In neither case can the women earn more than Rs. 325
per month.

38. Family earnings
• Earnings of a family of six were reported in the range of
Rs. 600 to 800 ($US15-20) for a six day week even
when the women were assisted by three children.
• The raw material and labour costs of the women and
children involved in rolling raw agarbatti together are
valued at only 10 percent of the total costs.
• All the high value processes—perfuming (30 percent)
packaging (30 percent) and marketing and overheads
(30 percent)—are controlled by male manufacturers.

39. Health issues
• Women and children working in this trade suffer a range of
common health problems. They are subject to backache due
to continuous bending.
• In fact, they are vulnerable to a variety of postural and
locomotive system problems due to the highly confined and
repetitive nature of their work.
• Many contract skin ailments and/or lose their sense of touch.
Their blistered hands are evidence of the gruelling nature of
the work they do which often leaves permanent scarring and
elevated palms even in the case of children.
• This is the result of exposure to ophthalmic acid ethers used
in the production of agarbattis. Workers can also lose their
sense of smell due to the all-pervading fragrance of the
incense sticks.

40. Thank you