The laborers in Almora can be categorized into three type:

Mate

These are the laborers who come from Nepal. They come here because in Nepal the jobs are very limited. Also they earn here much more by working overtimes. They can earn up to Rs.400 to Rs.500 per day if the day goes lucky – of course they work up to 16 hrs for it. Here in Almora, the current normal daily wage for mate is Rs.150. The fact that 1 Indian rupee is equivalent to 1.6 Nepalese rupee, it works well for them.

They generally come here for 4 to 6 month a year to earn the money. All most all Mate have lands in their native village. Rest of the year they remain in their village with family where they do various works cultivation, farming and taking care of their pets like buffalo, bullock, cow, sheep, goat – if they have.

Pahadi

Recently I worked with few Pahadi laborers and came to know the “inside” story, which changed my earlier impression that Pahadi laborers are not so hard working. The Pahadi laborers are generally from nearby villages within the area of 20 Km. Those few whom I asked, their house is around some 15Km far from the Almora Town. They get up by 4 in the morning. Together with their family prepare lunch (Roti and Curry), take care of the pets, milk the cow or buffalo. By 6 they get ready for work. They walk for 2.5 to 3 hours to reach here in work site. They work generally get over by 5:15 pm and after getting their wage by 5:30 they start walking to reach home by 8 in the night. For some after reaching home they will have work for some half an hour or more.

While laborer working hard to earn some money, his wife generally go mountain to cut grass to feed the cattle, collects wood for fire and takes care of farming.

Since a laborer can afford to eat only twice a day, they don’t take breakfast. As the Bihari laborers and Mate come from outside to work, they stay near the work site and come to work after heavy breakfast and don’t take lunch.

Like Mate, I have not come across any Pahadi laborer who does not have any land. They generally work for 8 to 10 months a year as laborer and the rest of year they work to grow vegetables, pulses, cereals etc.

Bihari

The laborer from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar are known as Bihari laborer. Their story is similar to Mates except the fact that they don’t earn as much as a Mate earns. Most Bihari laborers have land and cattle. They too come here to earn money as their home state does not have enough work for them. They work here for 6 to 8 months a year. Rest of the time they spend in their native village either to work as laborer there or work for their own land to grow crops.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Construction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.