Maid in India

Maid in India
District
Total number
of factories
Factories with Sumangali
Scheme Practices
Number of women
workers in scheme
practices
Tirupur / Spinning Mills 130 77 20,000
Erode / Spinning Mills 157 63 22,700
Erode Garment Industry 19 7 6,500
Dindigul / Spinning Mills 166 52 28,135
Coimbatore / Annur block* 121 92 21,765
Total 593 291 99,100
* Only the Annur Block in Coimbatore was included in the survey. It is estimated that the number of factories using
the Sumangali Scheme in the whole district of Coimbatore might be three times as high as the number included in
the table.
Apprenticeship scheme/ training scheme
Under the apprenticeship or training scheme, workers are employed as ‘apprentices’. These
workers either live in the factory hostels or they commute between factory and home. Apprentices
may also be employed under the Sumangali Scheme. Local law allows textile and garment
manufacturers to employ workers as apprentices for a maximum period of three years while in the
rest of India the apprenticeship period is limited to a maximum of one year. Hiring workers as
apprentices means that the employer can pay these workers an 'apprenticeship wage'.
Furthermore, apprentices are excluded from the protection of most labour laws. The Apprenticeship
Act states the following: ‘Any law with respect to labour shall, except for the provisions of Chapters
III, IV and V of the Factories Act 1948 (health, safety and welfare of the apprentice), not apply to or
in relation to an apprentice.’ Apprentices can thus be paid lower wages and they enjoy fewer rights
than regular workers.
The field research carried out for this report shows that workers employed under this scheme
cannot be considered as apprentices. According to the Apprenticeship Act, a worker can be
qualified as an apprentice if the employer maintains a record of the training of the apprentice and
issues a certificate of proficiency after the apprentice passes a test at the end of the training period.
The interviewed workers said that they do not follow any training or courses nor do they have to do
a test after completion of the training period. None of the interviewed ex-workers received a
certificate of proficiency.
2.3.2. Labour conditions in the Tamil Nadu textile and garment industry
Contracts/ false promises
In most cases there is no written agreement containing the promises made during recruitment.
Moreover, many workers who are recruited under the Sumangali Scheme are under the impression
that the promised lump sum payment is a bonus, while in fact the lump sum payment consists of
withheld wages.
Workers often do not receive a contract, leaving them without any proof of what has been
promised. Sometimes workers receive a contract in a language that they do not understand.
A 2011 study by a local NGO with the support of KFB Austria showed that among 1638 Sumangali
workers only 60.74% of the workers had signed a contract, and that an overwhelming majority of
these workers (96.1%) did not receive a copy of the contract. 21
21
KFB Austria, ‘Advocacy Study on the Impact of the Sumangali Scheme on the Adolescent Girls from Rural Areas of
Southern Tamil Nadu’, Tirunelveli, India, 2011.
22