Face of the Crisis

Chaya Manik Sontakke,
Waste Picker, Pune, India

“Always on the Fringe”

“Over the last 15 years I have traversed the distance between the parched fields where I worked as an agricultural wage labourer to the chrome and glass buildings of Infosys Technologies¹” says 32 year old Chaya Manik Sontakke with a bashful smile and sparkling eyes. Widowed when she was only 20 years old with three young children to care for Chaya, was introduced to waste picking by her sisters in law. There were few options available. Her husband had been a daily wage labourer and had died of a massive heart attack. She had barely been to school having completed only std. I.

Operating as a free roaming scavenger she joined the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat² when she heard about it from her relatives. “I participated in every activity” she says, “I sold my collected scrap at Kashtachi Kamai³; saved money in the credit cooperative; and sent my children to school. She was there when the opportunity to collect recyclable waste from Infosys Technologies presented itself nine years ago. At Infosys her daily earnings shot up to almost Rs.500 daily. Recognising that the benefits should be shared with her colleagues, she was instrumental in inducting more waste pickers into the group so that it swelled from 4 to 14 keeping pace with the company’s expansion. The earnings were shared equally among those in the group, despite the fact that Chaya evolved into the leader, the one who played shepherd to keep the flock together. The group also provided a livelihood to the mini truck driver, himself an informal worker, who transported their scrap to Kashtachi Kamai.

“Life as a waste picker has never been luxurious” according to Chaya who continues “but the Infosys work did transform my workday and bring in a lot of stability. We ate at the company canteen and had regular hours. Then at Kashtachi Kamai where I sold the scrap I got 10-12 per cent of my annual earnings in the profit distribution. I saved regularly in the credit coop and took a loan of Rs.40000 to buy a small plot of land on which I constructed a little two room house. My children are now in high school because at KKPKP we insist that children should pursue their education. Of course I am still a working class person, although I may have a few assets and my lifestyle has improved, it’s not like I mint money and have moved up in life.”

Life seemed to be doing exceptionally well for Chaya until a few months ago when the recession hit. “What did this recession mean to me?” says Chaya.........”Well the quantity of scrap exiting Infosys decreased dramatically. I went to ask them what the matter was, to check whether there were any leaks and others were accessing and selling it. I found out that the company earlier used to provide a newspaper to every employee and had now reduced it to one newspaper per room. After all we get what they buy and throw so if they buy less we get less. So now the quantity of scrap has halved as have our earnings and our work time has also reduced by a couple of hours.” She continues, “The scrap prices also dropped five or six months ago and everyone was saying “mandi mandi”⁴ but it didn’t stay that way for long, and they have been stable again for some months now.”

“What are the changes I have had to make in my life after my earnings halved?” Chaya asks quizzically. “Well, the costs have not gone down. The mini truck costs as much and our group is of the same size so we earn less than we used to and the cost of essential commodities have gone up. We are regular meat eaters but now we don’t buy meat and fish as often. The usual fare has changed to cereals and vegetables. I am not as liberal as I used to be with spending for my children’s education. Sometimes they have to pester me for a week before I get them a note book or a new pen. My eldest Vikas is 17 and in class VII and relatively indifferent to school. Every so often he drops out but I nag him into going back. The girls are more committed, Mohini is 14 and in class X while Rohini is 12 and in class VIII. I stay clear of the doctor because that’s a sure overspend. Let’s say I get by, life is not too bad, but I have seen better, and there may be worse to come. Thankfully I have my own house!”

Mangal, Waste Picker, Pune, India

“Secure in Times of Insecurity”

Jagannath mumbles in drunken stupor as Mangal tells him to stop making a nuisance of himself. He was not always like this......... there had been a few years of respite when he had climbed the slippery slope to dry himself out, egged on by his wife Mangal and the KKPKP. Indeed, he would address the other alcoholic husbands, chest puffed with the heightened sense of his own importance, recounting his recovery from alcohol. Now he lies next to his inebriated son, leaving Mangal, strangely enough stronger because at the end of hoping and trying and coaxing and cajoling, she has realised that all she has to rely on is herself!

The spoilt son fancied himself as an artist, and quite honestly he did paint well, but now he plays hide and seek with sobriety. To think of all those years she indulged his fancies—first a DVD player then a motorbike. Her two daughters never made any such demands. She knew she was spoiling him, ignoring well meaning advice from the neighbours, other waste pickers and KKPKP workers. He goaded her saying, “I didn’t ask to be born, you brought me into this world so now you have to cater to my needs”, and she succumbed.

If there is one thing that Mangal knows with certainty, it is that her earnings from waste and scrap are what support her family. She was instrumental in setting up the union, which really enabled her to find herself as a person. She emerged from the terrorising shadows of an abusive husband to become one of the most respected leaders of the KKPKP and the Treasurer of the credit cooperative. She recalls that she used to wet her pants when he came close to her, and now gleefully thinks that perhaps he does when he sees her address thousands of members of the KKPKP at a public demonstration. She doesn’t need KKPKP to deal with him now. As a matter of fact she helps other abused women in the community. Actively involved in all the KKPKP programmes, her children never did take much to education, despite her best efforts. Acutely conscious of her rights, she argues that she reduces the waste handling costs of the Pune Municipal Corporation, in return for which the PMC pays her medical insurance premium. She took a loan from the credit cooperative to construct a house with a mezzanine floor.

Recession? Mangal believes it has not really affected her. In any case her collection in user fees from door to door collection of waste fetches her much more now than the sale of scrap. So in some manner, she has been ‘formalised’ as a service provider. There is no difference in the scrap that she gets because she services a middle class locality where the consumption has been relatively steady over the years. She says her neighbour who services an area where young IT⁵ professionals live has reported a drop in scrap. The scrap trader has not reduced the prices either in the full knowledge that it will not be pleasant if she chooses to mobilise her colleagues against him. She drives a hard bargain claiming the best possible deal from him for her colleagues.

There is of course no bargaining with inflation.............. and that pinches, making life difficult!

Reference: Chaya Manik Sontakke and Mangal are members of the Kagad Kach Patra Kastakari Panchayat (KKPKP) in Pune, India. KKPKP is a membership-based association of informal scrap collectors (wastepickers and itinerant waste buyers) in Pune, India, founded in 1993. These case studies were written up by KKPKP based on recent interviews, as part of the global study on the impact of the global crisis on the urban informal workforce.

¹ Infosys Technologies is 21 century India’s most talked about corporate house

² Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat is the trade union of waste pickers in Pune, India and KKPKP is the abbreviation

³ Kashtachi Kamai meaning fruits of labour is a cooperative scrap store operated by the KKPKP. It offers waste pickers receipts for transactions; fair prices for scrap; accurate weights and a share in the profits.

⁴ Mandi is recession in the Marathi language

⁵ IT is information technology

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