Firemen feed coal and husks into a brick kiln in Diggih, Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh, in extreme heat.
MUGHALSARAI, Uttar pradesh: It’s 11 a.m. and a searing 45 degree Celsius in Chandauli district in
Uttar Pradesh. Arjun Mistry’s day has only begun. Mistry, 45, is a fireman at a local brick kiln,
about 250 kms from his home in Laxmanpur village in Pratapgarh, a small town known as
much for its temples and gooseberries as being a hub for firemen. Like Mistry, many
villagers migrate to kilns across India every year during the brick-making ‘season’
between January and June.
Mistry migrates for four months (March-June), like many others, leaving families behind in
Pratapgarh, where poor irrigation has shrunk farm labour opportunities.
Work at brick kilns is their livelihood lifeline, but as a heatwave swept across large swathes of India, with the maximum temperature breaching a record 52 degree Celsius in New Delhi, it is the harshest work condition that Mistry has ever worked in.
“The temperature is rising each year and I worry about falling ill. I feel more tired and drink water frequently to cool down,” Mistry said.
Lack of proper gloves, and wooden slippers exposes firemen to extreme heat.
They don’t wear gloves or masks, but are provided with wooden slippers by their employers to
protect them from the heat radiation from the kiln roof and flames. However, firemen like Mistry
said these slippers wear out quickly, and their feet burn in the heat. The flames from feeding coal
into the kiln also burn their soot-stained trousers. Owners, however, said that they do provide safety equipment but workers are reluctant to use them as it hinders their work.
Until a few years ago, firemen received jaggery as part of their weekly rations from the owners, which brick kiln workers believe is a cooling agent.
“Jaggery kept us hydrated and maintained our body temperature. However, now we receive a 50 rupees weekly allowance to purchase lemon, salt, and sugar to help cool down our bodies instead,” said Mistry.
The firemen, many of them landless, said working at the kiln meant working for long hours in the sun, with no shed for protection. But then, they had no other livelihood option either.
“Brick kiln owners’ agents had started visiting our villages, willing to provide advance payments, so
we decided to migrate to the kilns,” Mistry said.
Brick kilns in India are a booming sector. An estimated 100,000 brick kilns operate in India, with 20,000 in Uttar Pradesh alone, followed by Punjab, West Bengal, and Bihar. Globally India ranks second after China in brick production. In rural India, the brick kiln industry is the second largest employer of seasonal migrant laborers after agriculture.
However, the industry faces challenges due to pollution caused by coal combustion.
Last year, in Uttar Pradesh alone nearly 8000 brick kilns of nearly 20,000 were denied permission to operate by the state’s pollution control board that ordered their closure.
A worker holds pieces of coal in his hand.
Another feeds coal in the kiln.
Chandrika Prasad Yadav, a fireman from Sarailaharkei village in Pratapgarh, said that while mechanisms like moulding machines and air blowers have been introduced to replace manual moulding and diesel-operated air controllers, they have proven to be expensive and do not reduce labour costs. “Even if coal is replaced with other materials, they will still need firemen to control the fire, as it requires knowledge and experience,” he said.
For the past 40 years, Chandrika Prasad Yadav, a resident of Sarailaharkei village in Pratapgarh, has worked in brick kilns. He said he didn’t want his kids to work in brick kilns and that even he would rather work in agriculture if it paid well.
The firemen earn 16,000 rupees ($191) every month. Most of them take an advance payment of a month’s salary from the owner through an agent, and the remaining amount is paid monthly.
“I can earn up to 65,000 rupees (over 500 rupees a day) for my work at the kiln. The rest of the year, I work as a daily labourer earning 300 rupees per day,” said fireman Yadav, who is 60 years old and has been working in brick kilns for the past 40 years.
Brick kiln owners said that while the government wanted the sector to go green, it wasn’t providing the necessary handholding for the same.
“We are an unorgansied sector and struggle for bank loans to upgrade our technology,” said Ratan Srivastava, Chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Brickkiln Owners’ Association.
“Besides, the government needs to upskill these firemen so that we can transition to an energy-efficient industry,” he said.
The workers live near the kiln. They make roti and vegetables in the morning, for lunch, andanother meal of roti, dal (lentils), and occasionally rice. But they make sure to drink tea and water to stay hydrated.
But keeping cool is not an option as water access is often limited or at a distance. While a few kilns have installed deep tubewells within the compound, in most cases workers have to walk a distance for a drinking water tap or to take a bath in an open water body.
“Around 285 workers in the brick kilns depend on a single water tap,” Ashok Kumar, 50, said.
Most workers don’t want their children to do this job. “My elder son works in the construction sector, which is less exhausting than my work, and there is always demand for their work,”
Bricks stacked at a kiln in Mirzapur (left). Sri Kumar Saroj, a fireman and a labour agent, poses for a picture at a brick kiln. He got 45 people from his village jobs in brick kilns this year.
said Yadav, adding he would not choose to migrate if better irrigation would revive farms in
his village.
There are also concerns about the impact of extreme weather events on the sector.
Earlier, work at brick kilns started in November or December and continued until mid-June, said Virendra Kumar Singh, a brick kiln owner.
“Now we start in January-February and end by mid-June. Last year, around 900,000 moulded bricks kept for drying were damaged due to sudden rainfall, and even this year, rainfall in January
delayed our work,” he said.
But fireman Mistry believes he will survive, both the heat and the transition to clean processes in the brick kiln sector.
“We (firemen) receive a monthly salary, and our job requires technical expertise. Not all our family members are skilled in this field,” he said. “Our job is highly skilled, without us the fires in the kilns
will not burn.”.
Tanmoy Bhaduri is a Delhi-based development communication specialist
This story is a first in a three-part series, supported by Buniyaad, a movement for a just transition in the brick kiln sector, which aims to bring social, economic and environmental stories related to equitable change in the brick kiln industry of Uttar Pradesh.
