Wearing a florescent yellow jacket, R. Vijayalakshmi goes about sweeping Kalingarayan Street in Ramanagar with a broom that is at least a foot taller than she is. The 42-year-old Sidhapudur resident has been at the job for the past four months for Rs. 175 a day.
“I work even on Sundays to make ends meet,” says the conservancy worker who works on contract basis.
Four-and-half years ago, Ms. Vijayalakshmi was in the Coimbatore Corporation as a councillor raising her voice for the contract conservancy workers’ wages to be increased. “When I took up the issue in the Council, the contract agency was paying Rs. 100 a worker a day.”
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She represented the then Ward 29 in the Council from 2006 to 11. She now works in the neighbouring ward that has been renumbered Ward 52.
It was after a lot of deliberation that she decided to take up the job.
“After a chat with my husband B. Radhakrishnan, I took up the job to keep the kitchen fire burning. And when I stepped out of the house, it was for the first time in 26 years,” says the Communist Party of India-Marxist member.
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Her husband Mr. Radhakrishnan is a daily wage earner, loading and unloading goods from tourist buses in Siddhapudur. He says that over the past 24 months, his income has seen a steady decline as the travels company he was associated with wound up. “From Rs. 15,000 a month two years ago, I today get less than half the sum.”
Ms. Vijayalakshmi says she first approached a sanitary inspector for employment but he was not receptive. The officer claims he dissuaded her because he could not digest the fact that the very councillor with whom he had worked with was approaching him for employment as conservancy worker.
Only after weeks of persuasion he relented but after making it clear that there will be no preferential treatment or concessions, Ms. Vijayalakshmi says.
Her husband supported her but the children did not. “My husband said income from work was welcome but not the money that comes by way of cheating or fraud. The children, however, asked me to have a rethink as they initially felt uncomfortable.” Today, though, the children are appreciative, they say.
The couple wants to work harder so that they could rebuild savings in time for their daughter’s wedding. The son is about to complete his engineering.