582 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
18
*** Household Budget of a Labourer**
- Dr. Sir Zia Uddin Ahmad : (a) Will the Honourable the Labour Member please lay on the table the normal house-hold budget of a labourer for 1943, who earns eight annas a day and who has to support his family which normally consists of six persons ?
(b) What is the grain consumption of such a family and what price is to be paid ?
(c) What action have the employers of labour taken to feed their labourers ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : (a) There is no uniform budget for a labourer throughout India. It is regretted also that no family budget figures for 1943 can be supplied for any area. The statistics about family budgets in Bombay in some previous years can be supplied if the Honourable Member so desires.
(b) In the absence of statistics it is not possible to say what the grain consumption of a labourer’s family is. Diets and prices vary in different areas.
(c) A number of employers have opened grain shops or canteens and the Government of India are advising the main All-India Employers Associations that they regard such opening as very desirable. The attached statement gives a summary of information so far available with the Government of India.
Statement
(The information is the latest available but is not up-to-date.)
Madras.—Thirty-one factories have grain shops ; 13 of them have been opened by employers and 18 by workers’ Co-operative Societies, which are in several cases assisted by employers.
In 50 factories employers have laid in reserves of essential food articles against an emergency ; in six factories arrangements have also been made to supply cooked food to workers in an emergency.
In two factories employers are running canteens for workers.
Bengal—In 146 factories there are grain shops and emergency reserves are also held by them. Besides emergency grain stocks alone are held by 35 factories. Arrangements for supply of cooked food during an emergency exist in 73 factories.
Bombay/Punjab.—Detailed information is not available. But many employers have opened grain shops and have made arrangements as far as possible to hold emergency stocks of grains.
- Legislative Assembly Debates (Central), Vol. I of 1943, 16lh February 1943, pp.
268-69.