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Breaking their backs for a hostile society: A rags-to-rags story

Wrinkled at 43, considering the tiring and thankless nature of the job, Laxmi Kala, an independent, third generation ragpicker based in the 'city of dreams', has been single-handedly taking care of her family for decades. Her alcoholic husband is of no help to her whatsoever and has given her the responsibility of bringing up their four children alone. She has been able to get her two daughters married off, but with great difficulties, and she is looking to her eldest son, a law student, for support in the future.

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Laxmi Kala (right) and Anandi Harijan are associated with an NGO called Force
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Wrinkled at 43, considering the tiring and thankless nature of the job, Laxmi Kala, an independent, third generation ragpicker based in the 'city of dreams', has been single-handedly taking care of her family for decades. Her alcoholic husband is of no help to her whatsoever and has given her the responsibility of bringing up their four children alone. She has been able to get her two daughters married off, but with great difficulties, and she is looking to her eldest son, a law student, for support in the future.
Giving a wry smile as the chat begins with questions on her profession, Kala says, "My grandmother and mother, who migrated to Mumbai from Madras, made their living by sorting out waste, when I was a little girl. As there was no other source of income, when the time came, I too took up the job because I wanted to educate my children."
The Malad resident travels to Bandra daily to sort through the waste thrown outside posh societies.

Waist-deep in waste
Kala's story offers a peek into the lives of the nearly 2 lakh ragpickers in Maharashtra, who spend hours every day, painstakingly sorting waste from the piles of garbage generated daily. In Mumbai alone, there are about 20,000 ragpickers, many of whom work at the city's dumping sites. It is estimated that 95% of them are the only earning members in their families. On a good day, they make Rs300, but, then, that money comes at a heavy cost.
Apart from facing frequent verbal and sexual abuse from all corners, most of them end up compromising on their health. Working without basic protection gear leaves them open to infections, such as TB and other respiratory diseases, muscular-skeletal ailments, scabies and skin diseases.
The other day, Kala pricked her finger with a disposed needle while sorting out garbage. "What can we do? There is no other option to sustain our families," she says, adding that she has to continue working despite having excruciating back and stomach pain for the last couple of months.

Knocking on govt's door, which is yet to open
Maharashtra is yet to set up a full-fledged welfare board for informal workers, even though there are about 4 crore of them in the state, including ragpickers. A proposal on the issue has been on the back burner for nearly two years now. Government sources, however, informed that the board will be fully functional in a week, after non-official members are appointed on it by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
As a result, benefits of the existing social security schemes, like that of Janashree Bima Yojna, do not get disbursed to individual ragpickers' bank accounts, many of whom don't even have one. Some of those who work under an umbrella of NGOs, at times, act as a point of contact between the government and ragpickers.
Jyoti Mhapsekar, president of Sree Mukti Sangathana, an NGO that manages ragpickers and has around 200 women self-help groups under it, says they organise health camps and try to ensure that ragpickers get benefits of the limited schemes available with the government.
"Till date, there are no health insurance or pension provisions for them. We have been demanding that from the government for years but are yet to receive a response," she adds.

Where education flows down the drain
Insensitive societies in the urban areas of the state add to the ragpickers' woes.
"Even educated people do not segregate their daily waste into dry and wet. Rarely, when they do, do they themselves sell off the good, high-value dry waste. The others do not want to put their hands into piles of rotten wet garbage to pick out dry waste. That's when we come into the picture," says Anandi Harijan, 28, another ragpicker.
Harijan, too, is the only earning member in her family and has two daughters aged seven and 12. Toiling hard everyday, she has managed to admit both of them in a local English-medium school.
"I get no support from my husband. He is always intoxicated and least bothered about me and the children," she says.
But, in spite of being the lone earners, most of them, including Harijan, can't even think of letting go of their husbands, ever.
"It is important that I stay with him, so that society won't assume I am alone. Or else, people will only find it easier to abuse me," Harijan says, her eyes welling up.

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