When you enter the portals of TAFE J Rehab Centre in Alampatti near Madurai, it doesn’t feel like you are entering a factory premises. It looks more like a resort or a getaway with the Nagamalai hills as its backdrop.
However in the shop floor located amidst the sprawling two acre campus, the all-women work force puts together with their deft hands main wiring harnesses, fender harnesses, battery cables, trailer sockets and toolkit ba-gs for the tractors produced by various plants of the Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited (TAFE).
The work force — consisting of 57 women and 2 women trainees — are all orthopedically challenged. Some of these women need mobility aids like calipers to walk or someone to assist them while a few can only crawl.
The brain child of the J Rehab Centre is A Sivasailam, the former chairman of the group. It saw its humble beginnings in 1980 in a rented building in SS Colony, Madurai. It was named after S Anantharamakrishnan, Founder of Amalgamations Group, who was fondly known as ‘J’.
Moved by the plight of handicapped women, the centre was started with the aim to provide an opportunity for physically-challenged women to work and earn. An official of the company said that traditional vocations like tailoring were not chosen and instead they opted to produce wiring harnesses. Executives at the centre reiterate that the centre is not run for profit and is run only for the benefit of the differently-abled workers. ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ is a thing of the recent times, they say, “But our former chairman initiated this effort long before.”
Even though the initiative was meant to help these physically-challenged women to be independent and not be a burden on their family, it turns out most of these women at the J Rehab Centre are actually the breadwinners of their family.
For instance, 58-year-old Pasuvathy from Vilangudi, who is about to retire from service, has been supporting her two elder sisters with this income for the last 24 years. Trainee S Pandiselvi, 27, from Chekkanurani, lost her father, who used to vend ice candies for a living. With this job she is able to support her mother and paternal grandfather. She recounts how her previous job at a fireworks outlet was tough as she had to walk with much difficulty to get to work. But at the J Rehab Centre, she has transport facility, which gets her to work.
While A Pichaiyammal, who was affected by polio during her childhood like many of the others here, got two of her daughters married during her 32 years of service at the centre.
There are no pre-requisites for recruitment except the ability to read and write. Says an executive at the centre, “We recruit orthopedically-challenged women, who are able to read and write.”
But 56-year-old Dhanalakshmi is an exception. She is a Pre-University Course pass-out and works at the Crimping press machine.
All the workers are given two years of training during which they learn all the basics like how to read the wiring drawings and cut and crimp the wires.
These women also get breakfast and lunch for free and once a year, they are provided with calipers and other devices ,again at no additional cost.
Workers, who can’t move without assistance, are given assistance to move from the shop floor to the dining hall and to the toilets.
This initiative, by the industrial house TAFE, has won the National Award for the Best Employer for People with Disabilities in the year 2000.
The State Government also conferred the centre with the Best Employer State Award for providing maximum number of employment opportunities to persons with disabilities in the year 2000.
In short, the J Rehab Centre can be called a centre, which restores dignity to the differently-abled persons.