Clean, affordable housing will reduce exploitation of Indian textile workers

CHENNAI: A proposed new township for garment industry workers in the southern Indian textile hub of Tiruppur will tackle the problem of exploitation of workers housed in hostels on factory sites, campaigners said on Monday.

In a first, the Tiruppur Exporters´ Association, a trade body, has asked the Indian government to give the go-ahead for the construction of 100,000 houses and 200,000 dormitories in and around Tiruppur to accommodate workers.

In a proposal presented to Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley on Nov. 26, the association suggested a public-private partnership to build a satellite township near Tiruppur with schools, hospitals, shops and other amenities.

It has also recommended the construction of hostels for single working men and women in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where India´s textile industry is concentrated. "We are not able to attract or retain labour because living conditions available to them at present are not sufficient or ideal. Housing is a big problem," the association secretary S Shakthivel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The $40 billion Indian textile and garment industry, much of which operates in the informal sector and is poorly regulated, employs an estimated 45 million workers. According to the association, the industry in Tiruppur employs an estimated 800,000 workers, most of them migrant workers accommodated in cramped hostels run by the factories. —Thomson Reuters Foundation