Maharastra Creche for Bidi Rollers

The cheapest smoke in India is a rolled leaf, dried and tied with thread – called a bidi. A pack of 50 cost a few rupees – maybe 7 pence or so. It’s a huge cottage industry. Bidis have the happy-go-lucky image of a low-cost ‘treat’ but the reality of the bidi business is anything but...

Saikhindi is a village deep in the heart of rural Maharashtra. It’s just eight miles from the bustling city of Sangamner, yet the short trip between them spans several centuries. Life in village India can be just as tough as if the industrial and green revolutions, independence and democracy had never happened.

Here, a Bidi factory employing dozens of women overshadows the village. The Bidi business is not pretty. For villagers however, wages from bidi rolling makes subsistence possible. So the factory has a steady supply of willing workers, rewarded for their labour (and their quietism).

Anita Jedgule is 25. She’s one of the factory’s best workers. She won’t let her production rate slip since her manager gives work for the next day depending on her current production rate. For as long as she can each day, she cuts tobacco leaves into strips, rolls and ties them with coloured thread.

Recently, a new crèche opened in her village which signals better prospects for her son, Rushikesh, aged 6 and her daughter Vanita, aged 8. Saikhindi village is fortunate because the new crèche project enables women like Anita to get their children out of the dark, tobacco-heavy atmosphere of the factory and into pre-school classes.

"I have to work hard but I think that I will see a different future for Vanita and Rishikesh” Anita says. “Before, I used to wonder ‘what is all this work for?’, but now I see them happy and learning at the pre-school, with better chances than I had.”

Anita is proud of the change, facilitated by Prakash Palande and the National Institute for Sustainable Development. Prakash’s gentle, gradualist approach in Saikhindi (now funded by Karuna) has won many friends here through its practical help. “

We know from educationalists that if we can get children into pre-school learning then we stand a much better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty for the whole family. If we catch them young they develop much more quickly in confidence and literacy” he says.

Today the pre-school has twenty children. The atmosphere in their class is as vivacious and boisterous as any kindergarten. Its vivid colours contrast with the factory's dim interior and toxic air, where many mothers had felt constrained to keep their children during long work hours.

Together the kindergarten kids learn songs, play, draw, dance, and drop down sleepily-just a hundred yards from the factory.

Proximity is important, especially in persuading women who are not used to their children being out of sight. “I used to have Vanita with me but I know that by going over there, she stands a better chance in life. I know she’s nearby and she knows also, I can quickly see she’s alright” Anita says.

Places in the crèche are heavily subsidised but not completely free. Bidi workers are paid so little that even the bidis they roll can seem expensive here. But Anita is proud to contribute something to the cost of putting her children through kindergarten.

However, young children still remain in the factory and the crèche will need to expand and respond to the problems that keep them away.

The factory itself symbolises exploitation. For investors, it’s easy money. No machinery is used, no training or welfare provision and virtually no capital investment. Just a huge concrete shed. Their operation is so slick that businessmen even get villagers to put up their own money to build the ‘factory’ where they work. None provide help for the kindergarten.

For Anita and many other families, the crèche is all-important. It’s a small start, but represents an alternative future for village children, beyond the shadow of the factory and its bonded labour.

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