Pride in heart for tricolour-makers and no prejudice for low wages

Pride fills the air at the country’s only authorised (BIS-recognised) national flag production centre in Hubballi.

Flags that flutter atop buildings, ranging from the GP office to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, are made at this very unit.

Of the 21 workers here, 20 are women and their deft hands stitch the flags with a sense of pride in their hearts, the ‘not-so-encouraging’ wages they get notwithstanding.

Most of the workers at the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha’s flag production centre at Bengeri are working ever since the centre’s inception.

Demand for the flags soars ahead of Independence Day and Republic Day each year. But the times have been testing for this institution in the last two years, owing to the Covid pandemic.

The workers here are not so satisfied with the wages they get for the piece work, but they aren’t giving up their jobs, thanks to the honour that comes with the job.

No high wages

Among the 21 workers, 14 persons get wages as per their piece work like colouring, curing, stitching and toggling, while the rest get a salary. Everything has to be done as per strict norms of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the flag code, the staff say.

“I do piece-work of stitching, and I usually earn up to Rs 300 for a full day’s work. Not all days are the same, though,” says Vanishri Pawar, who is working here for the last 16 years.

“But, we do get facilities like PF and ESI,” says Ramdas, the only male worker at the centre.

Annapurna Koti, the manager, admits that the workers get less than Rs 300 per day. They earn extra for overtime duty before national festivals.

“We look at this work as national service. Production has picked up now, compared to the last two years,” she said.

“The union government’s cost-chart committee revises the prices occasionally,” says Sangha secretary Shivanand Mathapati.

The Sangha sold flags worth Rs 90 lakh from April to December in 2020, and the sales in the corresponding period in 2021 reached Rs 1.8 crore.

“We used to cross the business target in the pre-Covid times. The demand for new flags plummeted during the Covid period,” he says.

The Sangha had sold flags worth Rs 15.12 lakh in 2005-06, and the figure reached Rs 2.8 crore in 2018-19.

“We may not be able to reach the Rs 3.5-crore target for 2021-22. We already have flags worth around Rs 50 lakh in stock, but have not stopped production. We have a capacity is to produce flags worth Rs four crore per year,” Mathapati added.

The maximum demand is for flags measuring 2X3 feet and 2x3.45 feet. Only a few flags with the maximum size of 21X14 feet are sold, he said.

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