BANGALORE: Sixty-year-old Rafiq is neither a smoker nor a passive smoker. But he started rolling beedis when he was 14. Now he is a TB patient and is on his death bed. In spite of repeated warnings from doctors not to engage in beedi making, he continued rolling beedis. “I know of no other job. I am not educated and I can’t work anywhere else. That’s why I kept working as a beedi roller,” he says. But the man who is now on his death bed only hopes that his descendants will not have the same plight as his.Health problems are a part and parcel of the beedi workers lives. The tobacco dust that they inhale can result in chronic bronchitis and TB in the long run. Majority of the beedi workers of Bangalore reside in and around Goripalya, and a lot of them complain of breathlessness among other problems. “A lot of people complain of asthma too,” says Syed Mujib, the general secretary of Karnataka State Beedi Workers’ Federation. “I have a history of cancer patients in my family,” says Haleema, a beedi worker, whose family is engaged in beedi making for years. Though doctors have not pinned the cause to rolling beedis, Haleema believes it’s so. But there are other health problems Haleema faces as an aftermath of the job. “I sit for eight to ten hours at a stretch rolling beedis. This has left me with a constant backpain. My children also complain of the same,” she points out. Beedi workers primarily belong to the unorganised sector. Most of them work from home and are not employed in factories unlike how it was a couple of decades ago. And they say that they miss out on the many health schemes that the organised sector offers. “But there is a welfare scheme from the central government that covers health aspects. It covers the entire treatment for cancer, gives 1.30 lakh for heart problems and 2.50 lakh for kidney problems. Unfortunately, these people are not aware of it,” says Syed Mujib. “It’s time that we make them aware of what they are eligible for,” he adds.But Mujib says that prevention is better than cure. “You have to tackle it before the health problems start,” he says. A few years ago, Mujib, along with a few others handed out protective masks to beedi workers, in an effort to crop the problem at the roots. “These masks can prevent tobacco dust from entering the nostrils. But how many masks can a worker’s federation hand out?” he asks. According to the government, there are three lakh beedi workers across the state. But according to the trade union, there are about 10 lakh workers, with quite a huge number from Bangalore as well. Newly appointed BBMP health commissioner Geetha Shashikumar is against smoking. She is planning to float awareness campaigns in the city about the ill-effects of smoking. But does she have any concrete plans for beedi workers? “I understand that there are many health issues the workers are battling with. I’ve just been appointed. So at present, I have not zeroed in on any concrete plan for them. But surely, I will look into the issues they are facing,” she says.
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