International Journal of Research and Review www.ijrrjournal.com E-ISSN: 2349-9788; P-ISSN: 2454-2237 Research Paper Psychosocial Conditions of Brick Kiln Workers in Poonamallee Taluk, Thiruvallur District Dr. S. Sudharsan Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work (Aided), Madras Christian College, Chennai, India. ABSTRACT This descriptive study on psychosocial conditions of brick kiln workers was conducted to comprehend People‟s view of the fast paced development that knocking at their doorstep with the promise of taking India forward. The relevant data was collected with the help of structured interview schedule from fifty respondents. The researcher made visits to brick kilns the fifty respondents while gathering the data. The findings of the study clearly signify that the families in brick kilns fell into debt to meet basic needs. Keywords: Brick kiln workers, family, psychosocial conditions. INTRODUCTION General objective: A Study on Psycho India is the second largest producer Social Conditions of Brick kiln workers in of clay fired bricks, accounting for more Poonamallee Taluk, Thiruvallur District than 10 percent of global production. India Specific objectives is estimated to have more than 100,000 1. To study the socio-economic condition brick kilns, producing about 150-200 billion of the respondents bricks annually, employing about 10 million 2. To understand their occupational workers and consuming about 25 million background of the respondents tons of coal annually. India‟s brick sector is 3. To study the livelihood conditions of the characterized by traditional firing respondents technologies; environmental pollution; 4. To elicit the rehabilitation opinion from reliance on manual labour and low the respondents. mechanization rate; dominance of small- Limitations of the study: During the study scale brick kilns with limited financial, the researcher found all of the respondents technical and managerial capacity; belonged to the same community. These dominance of single raw material (clay) and people to some extent answered similarly. product (solid clay brick); and lack of institutional capacity for the development of METHODOLOGY the sector Field of study: This study was conducted in Importance of study: This research acts as Poonamallee Taluk of Tiruvallur District. an essence to analyze the brick kiln works Thiruvallur District was bifurcated from as a psychosocial issue. This study will east while Kanchipuram District on 01-12- serve as a baseline for designing 1997. The district Thiruvallur has an area of interventions and measuring the progress of 3418 sqkm. distributed over 14 Panchayat implementation of ratified constitutional Unions in 8 Taluks. The District lies in procedures to eliminate forced labour and between 12-10 degree and 13-15 degree worst forms of labour in Tamil Nadu. north latitude and 79 -15 degree and 18 -2 International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 177 Vol.6; Issue: 9; September 2019 S. Sudharsan. Psychosocial Conditions of Brick Kiln Workers in Poonamallee Taluk, Thiruvallur District degree east longitude. Thiruvallur is a also focus its attention on the objectives of coastal district, adjacent to metro of the study data collection methods, sampling, Chennai. It is bounded on the east by Bay of data processing and reporting. This research Bengal and Chennai city on the north by is a descriptive design. The study is aimed state Andhra Pradesh, on the south by at describing the social, economic and Kanchipuram District, on the west by cultural conditions of the Brick kiln Vellore District. At present Thiruvallur workers. The researcher has attempted to District comprise 8 taluks, 14 blocks and study the psychosocial conditions of the 816 villages. As regards to the hierarchy of respondents. Descriptive Research Design is administrative arrangement there are 6 a scientific method which involves municipalities, 19 town panchayats and 669 observing and describing the behavior of a village panchayats in the district. subject without influencing it any way. Thiruvallur district has a total population of Descriptive designs results in a description 27, 38,866 persons (as per 2001 census) of of the subject, whether in words, pictures, which male account for 13, 90,292 (51%) charts or tables and whether the data and female account for 13, 48,574 (49%). analysis shows statistical relationships or is Rural population comprises 45 percent and merely descriptive. Moreover this design urban 44 percent with sex ratio of 970/1000. does not confine the researcher within a The total geographical area of the frame work of understanding and analyzing. Thiruvallur district is 341810 hectares. Of There is a possibility of going beyond. this total area, the cropped area accounts for Sampling method: Sample is a microcosm 50.7% (173,409 hectares). The fallow land that is extracted from the population or comprising current and other fallow universe. A good sample represents the constitutes 17.7% of total area spread over population from which it selected. Simple 60578 hectares. Nearly 31.2% of land area Random Sampling is an alternative to to total geographical area is not available for random sampling. It consists of taking every cultivation. The forests cover 20092 „K‟th item in the population after a random hectares in the district is accounting for start with an item from 1 to “K”. Size of the 5.9% of the total land area. These are 6 sample refers to the number of items to be villages located abutting forest ranges in chosen from the universe to form a sample Thiruvallur, Uttukottai, Ponneri and size. The size of the sample must be Poonamallee taluks forest areas in the optimum. The sample size is determined by district. the parameters of size of the population. FIELD OF STUDY: POONAMALLEE Considering all these facts the sample size is TALUK THIRUVALLUR DISTRICT 50 in this study. Universe: The universe of this study Sources of data: The search for answers to consists of all the households, living in research questions is called collection of “Brick kilns” of Poonamallee Taluk, data. Data are facts and other relevant Thiruvallur District. materials, past and present, serving a bases Research design: Research Design helps to for study and analysis. The researcher went decide upon issues like “what, when, where, to the field and collected the primary data how much, by which means etc. of the by means of face-to-face interview with the research study. A research design is the respondents. All the respondents were arrangement of conditions for collection and typical Brick kiln Workers of the rural analysis of data in a manner that aims to community. The researcher also gone combine relevance to the research purpose through reference materials and documented with economy in procedure. Research data from published secondary sources like design constitutes the blue print for the books journals, periodicals, reports websites collection, measurement and analysis of etc. the researcher also spent sufficient time data (Seltiz, 1962). Research design should International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 178 Vol.6; Issue: 9; September 2019 S. Sudharsan. Psychosocial Conditions of Brick Kiln Workers in Poonamallee Taluk, Thiruvallur District in interacting and discussing the topic of the voluntarily.” (Forced Labour Convention, study with different experts in the field. 1930). Tools of data collection: Interview Schedule was prepared to study the MAIN FINDINGS psychosocial conditions of brick kiln 1. Age category workers fulfilling all the objectives of the The study reveals that 38 percent of research. The following are the tools of data respondents are in the age group of 21-25 collection: year. It has been evident that significant Interview Schedule amount of 38 percent are in the category of The interview schedule consists of personal 26-30 year and 24 percent of young details, family details, socio economic respondents are in the age category above conditions, housing conditions, agriculture 30 and above years they are the productive land details, livestock details, saving and age group. indebtedness details, water and sanitation, 2. Gender social capital , common property resources Most of the respondents who had details, Impoverishment Risk Assessment, participated in this survey were males. attitude towards the project, psychological 3. Religion conditions , Resettlement and Rehabilitation Predominantly of the respondents is opinion details. Totally 30 questions following Hinduism as the major religion of excluding sub questions were included. the country. Preparation of tools: In consultation with 4. Caste: the experts and professors and social Cent percent of the respondent were workers in the particular field, the tools for Scheduled Caste this study are prepared. Pretesting: In order to find out the EDUCATIONAL STATUS: applicability and validity of the tool a well Educational profile of the household prepared interview schedule was given to 3 population heights low level of education respondents. Based on the pre testing the attainment; more than half (52%) of the researcher added, deleted and edited some respondents had no formal education. questions on these heads. The pre testing Notably 40 percent of the respondents was done. completed primary education. Findings also Actual data collection: The data collection indicate that 8 percent of the sample size was done at different stages in the month of received higher education, respectively December 2013. The