Sagar, Madhya Pradesh:
It's not just the bidi manufacturers who are responsible for exploiting thousands of workers. The bidi trade in Madhya Pradesh relies heavily on the sattedar who is the middleman or sub-contractor. They supply raw material like tendu leaves, tobacco and thread to bidi workers and collect bidi packets each day for manufacturers.
They middleman is key to the entire bidi operation. Over 3,400 of them are in Sagar district alone. They work to exploit hundreds of bidi rollers- many of whom are children - in illegal factories. The sattedar 's main income comes from this factory, as they get a small commission.
The bidi workers say they are exploited by the middle-man. Bidi workers are supposed to get Rs 47 for every 1,000 bidis rolled but they actually get only Rs 25. Bidi rollers also claim that the middle-man claims their quality is poor and rejects between 20 to 50 per cent of the bidis made. Later, he then sells them as unbranded bidis in the black market.
Says Shashi, a bidi roller, "The profit made from the bidis is only his (middle-man's) we get no profit out of it
The manufacturers don't intervene because the sattedar helps to keep costs really low. And both join hands to cheat workers of welfare support. The government deducts Rs 5 per day per worker from the manufacturer for social security. But since the sattedar registers only 8 to 10 workers out of the 100 families who roll bidis for one middleman, the manufacturer pays a small sum to the government.
The other problem for bidi rollers is that out of 12 lakh bidi workers in MP, only 2 lakh are formally registered with the government, which means the welfare fund loses Rs 50 lakh daily. At a time, when the nation is fighting against corruption in governance, it is high time the state government took steps to prevent a vast section of its labour force from being exploited so blatantly.