Community Visit (Kolshet- Thane Rural)

(Photographs by Sharmishtha)

Locality Visited: Kolshet (Thane Rural)

Volunteers: Sharmishtha, Krishna

Dwellers: a) Jadi booti immigrants

b) Blacksmiths

c) Daily wage building and highway construction workers.

Child Labourers: few, most of them involved in the helping their parents.

Primary School availability: can be categorized in two ways.

a) Children going to near by private school: These school does not charge tuition fee but they charge Rs 60 examination fee five time in a year(Total - Rs300).

i) Quality of education : Not known

ii) Hygiene : Not known

b)Children going to Primary schools: These are primary schools run by Thane municipality. Most of the students from this are go to this school.

i) Quality of education : Not known

ii) Hygiene: Not satisfactory (school dress wore by students were not in good shape.)

Primary Issues (education): The children of immigrant high way workers don’t have access to school. Most of these children are below 6 years of age who play at the road side while their parent works at the highway site. The children above 6 years of age help their parents in the construction work.

Severity of the issue: While interaction with immigrants’ highway construction families we came to know that these families stay at one site for maximum 10-15 days and then move on to next site. For instance: the workers in the photographs moved from Goregao (Mumbai) 3 days back to Thane- Ghodbander Road site.

They mentioned that they can’t leave their children at their native place as they are too small and most of the time there is no one back in the village to take care of them.

These children can’t be enrolled to any near by school (Municipality or other) as IT’S NOT POSSIBLE AT ALL. THERE IS NO SUCH PROVISION FOR CHILDREN FROM SUCH FAMILIES.

Big Question: following are the primarily questions rose from our scan and visit to Kolshet village.

a) Right now Infrastructure and highways projects are running across India and thousands of daily wage workers are employed there. Is future and education of children from these families not attention worthy?

b) Can Municipality make a special arrangement for children of road side construction site workers?

c) Can hygiene of the Primary schools in this area be improved?

Other issues: Non availability of ration card for the families residing their from last 10 years. Most of these families are from Jaddi Boot communities who are residing in that area from last 10-12 years and paying their electricity and other bills regularly.

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