Low-cost housing for women beedi workers

Mumbai, July 2: In a major initiative of its kind in public-private partnership for providing low cost housing, around 10,000 women beedi workers in Solapur district of Maharashtra will soon get possesion of a one room-kitchen tenement.

The housing project -- in which the Centre and state governments have acted as facilitaors by arranging land and providing subsidies -- is spread over 425 acres of land at Khumbari on the Southern fringe of Solapur.

It has been designed for an average population of 70,000 with houses organised in groups of clusters. Each group consists of 100 houses located in 25 clusters, according to Anil Pandhe, chairman and managing director, Pandhe Construction Private Ltd.

Mr Pandhe told UNI, ''There have been low-cost mass housing schemes in China, but this is the first time that houses are built exclusively for women.'' The project took off after the Union and state government decided to contribute Rs 40,000 each as subsidy, while the beneficiary is expected to pay Rs 20,000.

The district at present boasts of a staggering 60,000 women beedi workers living in abject poverty. A majority of these women had migrated from neighbouring Andhra Pradhesh and Karnataka decades ago in search of livelihood.

Mr Pandhe said the second phase covering the remaining beedi workers of the district would soon be unfolded after the Union and state government agree to revise tenders.

Earlier, the women beedi workers in the district mobilised under the cooperative housing society called 'Comrade Godutai Parulekar Mahila Beedi Kamgar Sahakari Grih Nirman Sanstha Maryadit'. These women, through, the Sanstha, fought for better living conditions and finally in 1998, their efforts bore fruit in the form of a housing project.

UNI