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The leaf-plate making women of Kothakota village of Visakhapatnam District in AP raised a banner of revolt during the Mahila Janmabhoomi progamme held recently.

In Kothakota village, thousands of women and children, aged 6 to 60 years, are engaged in leaf-plate making as a home based industry. It is their main source of income. They will start work early in the morning and continue till the market starts in the evening. Even the school going children do the work after school hours.

For 12 to 13 hours of work they get Rs 7.50 per day; some times they return home, with unsold leaf-plates and empty pockets.

The business people will come to the market in the evening for buying. They have no fixed timings and continue buying till their target is met. The women are facing abuses and harassment from the buyers. As it is a home based industry, the government is not taking any step to fix a remunerative price for making the leaf-plates.

Moreover, the village heads are collecting one rupee per every bundle of 150 leaf plates as village tax. The sellers of leaf-plates need not pay the tax as per the Panchayat Act. Surprisingly, the village heads are collecting this tax from the women of their own village and not from outside buyers. Nearly Rs 8 lakh are collected every year.

The district committee of CITU, WWCC, AIDWA, held group meetings and distributed pamphlets against this illegal tax collection. They contacted the Ambedkar Associations, youth associations, Mahila Mandal and educated them. As a result, the nodal officers of Mahila Janmabhoomi were compelled to arrange a joint meeting on 10.5.99. Nearly 500 women workers gathered in front of the Panchayat Office and demanded stoppage of tax collection. At last, the authorities agreed to order stoppage of the collection. It is a major victory for the women workers against an age-old custom.

It is the collective efforts of the organisations and has created confidence among the women workers. It will influence the other working women working in ancillary works. The agitation was led by G S Rajeswara Rao, Venkunaidu (CITU) M Dhanalaxmi, Mani (WWCC), Anuradha (AIDWA).