When she lost her job, Renuka felt the innermost fear she had experienced.
Before the State government’s liquor policy last year and more recently the Supreme Court’s order banning liquor vends along highways, Renuka had a steady job at United Distilleries, Vengalipara, on the outskirts of Kozhikode city.
The 47-year-old had been leading nearly a secure life. “ I have no job after the management closed the plant from April 1. The factory had earlier survived several crises. What we feared has happened,” she said.
Renuka is among the 300-odd workers at the factory who have been rendered jobless. Nearly 90% of the workers are women and on contract basis. Unemployment and poverty have circumscribed their lives.
The case of Sheeba, a 40-year-old widow is more pitiable. “I have a college- going daughter. How will we carry on,” she bewails. Her husband died 15 years ago.
Majority of the women like Renuka and Sheeba have been working at the factory for more than a decade. They work included filling, sealing, labelling, and packing. Many are from economically backward families and reside in and around the factory at Mokavoor, Kandamkulangara, and Eranikkal.
“The workers get work for at least 15 days a month. That was fair enough to meet their needs. But the company arbitrarily shut down the factory. Perhaps a change in liquor policy will resume its operations,” Rathesh Babu, president, United Distilleries Workers Union (CITU), said.
The factory owned by a Dubai-based NRI decided to close doors after facing huge loss on account of drastic fall in sales. “The distillery had been producing 1.8-1.6 lakh cases a month. The production fell to one-lakh cases from last April. The drop touched 50,000 this year, ” V. Vinod Krishnan, company manager, said.
The company began operations with its own brand in 1988. After the government imposed the turn-over tax, the company said goodbye to its brand from 2000. “So we decided to produce Indian Made Foreign Liquor of other three companies, Radico Khaitan, United Breweries, and S.D. Beverages. The brands of these companies such as whiskey, brandy, vodka, and rum were sold to the Kerala State Beverages Corporation. The decline in sales order forced these companies to shift to other distilleries,” he said.
Besides, Mr. Krishnan said the company had to incur the expenditure of the Excise unit, including a preventive officer and guards. This expense alone came to Rs.3 lakh a month, he added.
