HOW SLAG-PICKERS EKA OUT A LIVING

The only source of subsistence for them for the last 28 years. For these 4000 dump men the dump behind the FFP is not only a source of survival but also their inheritance and future. the dump which consists of rejected coal, sand and iron chips provide at least Rs.18 Iakh per month to these slag pickers.
They are not workers, they  are not bonded Laborers, they are simply slag pickers. They do not have any regret if child works there, as one dompmn. Serij puts it, “Our life started in this dump and it will in this dump.
Their life revolvers around this dump place where the work starts at 10.30 aim and ends at 6 pm. Exactly at 10.30 an  when HEC siren sounds, the dump men start their job for next hours. For the dumpmen, the job is nut as casual as dustmen, they have their self made rules which they follow very strictly.

The whole dumpmen fraternity works as a member of Swaantra Dumping Majdoor Vistapit” which is headed by Mr. Shiv Charan Ram. The Work Is mainly divided into three categories sand dump men,  coal dump men and the chip dumpen. The persons under each group can pick gaily sand, coal and chips respectively. Such is the well defined rules among the dumpmen that if one dumpm an attends one truck of dump, he can’t attend the next truck again.
This rule suggests that every dumpman should be given equal chance. They work systematically, cohesively and with unity.
About 4000 dumpmen who live in as many as 20 mohallas and tolas have neither any school not any learned person in their midst to guide them. One old dumpman Mr. Backreed Khan very rightly complains “The government has provided us nothing. Our children are uneducated”.
We have no water supply, not even a shed at the dump site. So many politicians and pressmen visited then regularly including Mr. Subodh Knat Sahay, MP,  but their condition is as pathetic as it has every been complained the aggressived dumpman.
For the dumpmen the site is the mountain of Gold, where the only voice that can be heard is khurr ... khurr... [The noise of khurpi used to ick the coals and & chimps].