SPICE ROUTE: TO KERALA, IN SEARCH OF LIVELIHOOD

Theni residents want politicians to find a solution to the lack of job opportunities that is pushing women to cross over to Kerala for work

- JEYALAKSHMI RAMANUJAM

MANY an election season has passed; many decades and many promises. Still, the plight of majority of Theni residents, mostly women labourers, remains unchanged, as the changing governments in the last 50 years both DMK and AIADMK are yet to walk their poll talk on creating job opportunities and road connectivity to Sakulathumettu in Kerala from Fingers crossed, the 20,000 odd women labourers Cumbum, Bodinayakanur and Kumili who take the early morning jeep to the cardomom plantations in Idukki in the nearby Kerala state due to lack of work in their native are hoping their ordeal would end after this Lok Sabha election.

Ask the women, they would say earning ₹350 to 450 a day is not easy. They have to board the jeep, thickly packed with some 20 people, at 5 am, negotiate the twists, turns and hairpin curves for a distance of 60 km to reach Idukki, putting their mental and physical health at risk.

Parvathi (name changed) (38) from Uthamapalayam area, a single parent working in cardamom plantation in Idukki for over seven years, said she would get only 200 if she works in her native.

"Planting and harvesting in most agriculture fields here are mechanised now, and the land owners engage workers only for removing the weeds. I have three school-going children, and am the only bread-winner in my family. To go to Idukki plantations for work, I have to wake up around 3.30 am, do the household chores before boarding the jeep at 6 am so that I could get a weekly sum of 2,100. "This sum apart, we don't get any others benefits including bonus or insurance," she said.