India's social contrasts
Take a look at the picture below:
Now take a closer look at the amplified version:
This is a construction site in Electronics City, Bangalore, located between Siemens and IIIT-B (An Information Technology Institute). Although all the buildings in this region are really sumptuous, the same cannot be applied to the ones under construction.
Some of the workers actually live in these aluminum houses behind the construction. They have no hygienic conditions and the dirt floor looks like a swamp to me. Besides, the workers have almost no protection; some of them wear helmets but they don't have proper shoes (they wear sandals) and they don't have any cables to support them while working in the higher floors.
And guess how much they get paid... I can't confirm this yet but some fellow students here where I'm living told me that they earn an average of Rs. 40 / day. That's about US$ 1 /day!!! And of course with that daily amount they need to work even during weekends and holidays to get at least US$30 at the end of the month...
I have no more to say about this...
Now take a closer look at the amplified version:
This is a construction site in Electronics City, Bangalore, located between Siemens and IIIT-B (An Information Technology Institute). Although all the buildings in this region are really sumptuous, the same cannot be applied to the ones under construction.Some of the workers actually live in these aluminum houses behind the construction. They have no hygienic conditions and the dirt floor looks like a swamp to me. Besides, the workers have almost no protection; some of them wear helmets but they don't have proper shoes (they wear sandals) and they don't have any cables to support them while working in the higher floors.
And guess how much they get paid... I can't confirm this yet but some fellow students here where I'm living told me that they earn an average of Rs. 40 / day. That's about US$ 1 /day!!! And of course with that daily amount they need to work even during weekends and holidays to get at least US$30 at the end of the month...
I have no more to say about this...
Labels: India
posted by Ricardo at
8:43 AM
3 Comments:
Btw, American steelworkers don't use support cables all the time either. There is just nothing to hook yourself into when you are working on the top floors. They had a special about them the other day on Discovery or History channel and I was amazed.
Apparently the popper way to walk on the steal beams is to straddle them between your legs. The cross section of the beam is kinda like the capital letter I - so you put your feet on the bottom part, and hold to the top with your hands. This way even if your leg slips, you can prevent yourself from falling by holding on with your hands and thighs.
Most of them don't do it this way, because it's slow and uncomfortable way to walk so you see them just walking on a steel beam with no support 20 or 30 floors up in the air. This is of course a violation of safety regulations, and if they fall you can't really sue the company because they train them in the popper way to do this.
So the fact that they work without support cables is not so surprising. I think it's done this way all over the world.
But yeah - these shacks look nasty. At least here in US steelworkers get paid decent money for this kind of dangerous work.
Hmmm... Very good point. Anyway, take a look at Wikipedia's article about construction safety which cites EU law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_worker#Personal_Protective_Equipment
Indeed there is no mention of cables there but according to it (which may not be applicable in India since its EU law), besides the hard-hat and boots, they should be wearing high visibility jackets, gloves and goggles...
Instead, they are using sandals, shorts and old t-shirts...
I'm planning on writing a bigger post about India's poverty after collecting more information about it.
The IT clusters here are incredible but these "black-holes" will drag the country down if the authorities don't do anything.
Sorry, the link to Wikipedia got cut. The correct is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_worker#Personal_Protective_Equipment
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home