3 min readAhmedabadAug 15, 2011 01:42 AM IST
First published on: Aug 15, 2011 at 01:42 AM IST
Making one more foray into male bastion of construction activity,a group of women here has mastered tasks from masonry to plastering to executing building contracts in a well organised way.
Putting their collective power to the best use,the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) has formed a cooperative — Shree Rachaita Bandhkam Mahila Sewa Sahakari Mandli Ltd — with around 300 women construction workers as members.
The cooperative,formed some time ago,is now a fully grown construction contractor that has ensured uninterrupted work for its members at a time when work for individual workers was decreasing due to changing patterns of construction business and the global slowdown.
“Trust them and they will deliver,” said Manali Shah,coordinator at SEWA,when asked how would one entrust typically male-dominated jobs in construction activity. She said bringing them in the mainstream was an objective of this cooperative body.
The cooperative has also been linked to prospective clients,like builders and construction companies,so that they get small contracts.
The cooperative has also removed a major hurdle of lack of resources for the workers wanting to take up contracts independently but could not for want of tools. “A centralised tools and equipment library providing equipment to Rachaita members on reasonable rents helps them a lot,” said Rachaita’s founder-president Ramilaben Parmar.
Parmar said it took more than two years to get the cooperative registered thanks to general lack of trust in women’s ability to run such an association.
“People still can’t come to terms with our achievement. But they are convinced when we show them our track record of completing over two dozen big and small projects and the fact that we are the only woman’s association to have registered as contractor with L&T among its five lakh contractors,” Parmar said while recalling its work with L&T at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.
Currently,Rachaita is busy with a hospital construction work on the Monogram Mill land in Bapunagar and a bungalow in Thaltej,she said. “We provide employment to nearly 100 of our members daily even as talks are on for newer projects at Noblenagar and other areas,” Parmar said.
She said that many workers registered with the cooperative have graduated from ordinary labourers to full-fledged masons with their daily earning increasing from Rs 180 to Rs 350.
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