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Now, 60 of these start-up floriculturists have come together to form a society to push for basic infrastructure. Alka has been chosen as the president-elect. “Yahan par phool hai, phool ke alava kuch nahin hai,” said Alka, who lives in Pune and travels to the floriculture park every day. But the workers at the park can’t afford such luxury.
“Our first priority is to get a school started here. The entire park would have more than 400 children, as most couples have 2-3 children staying with them. They are not studying, this is our biggest worry,” said Ram Sushil Kevat, a labourer at the Nikams’ poly house, who has three children himself.
The floriculture park traces its origin to the fact that being situated within one km of the Indrayani river, it could be used for industrial purposes. As a compromise, MIDC converted it into a floriculture park four years ago.
"We have given them a no-objection certificate for the creation of the society. We had no policy to create basic infrastructure here because of the river. But since the flower growers want to set up common amenities, we would be giving them a plot and they can set up the required infrastructure amongst themselves," said Purushottan Jadhav, regional officer, MIDC.
Though only four km away from Talegaon, the floriculture park is far removed from the outside world. Dotted with pale yellow poly houses for flowers to grow in, the park is devoid of any bank, school, hospital, or even a grocery store to purchase essential commodities from. Currently, there are over 65 working poly houses, each with at least four husband-wife pairs, besides the owners.
Even as the labourers are grappling with lack of basic amenities for their families, the growers are struggling to retain these labour hands for the long hop. With there being no common pay scales in place in the floriculture park, the labour keep jumping ship when offered marginally better salary.
"One of the reasons why we decided to set up a society is because of the rates charged by MIDC for water, one key input. We are charged according to the industrial rates, whereas it should be agriculture rates," said V S Jamma, a member of the proposed society.
The members also want to set up an auction house for the flowers, a cold storage, and other amenities like a hotel. "As a society, we would be able to buy fertilizers directly from the industry, and cut out the middlemen. An auction house would ensure that we know the prices at which the flowers are sold. Right now the market is trader dominated," said Jamma.
Hello fellow flower growers at MIDC and elsewhere in India.I have invested 12 years in this field and I still come across growers with problems that were existing then nothing has changed I too face the same problems. The solution is not very easy and coming togather is a good way to tackle issues. First I belive we should put down our goal and second, do not loose focus of the goal come what may.Be ready to do the hard thing for ever that is, change our attitude to ourselves. Stop seeing yourself cutting corners and then you would see other (growers) in positive light too. Keep Faith in yourself and only then would you have faith in others and as a team. Growers need to build strong inter-personnel relations amongst themselves a true co-operative approach where there is just one attitude approach CO-OPERATE like as if you are married for life with the other co-grower. Good luck
did u ring up
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