Kerala’s coir cooperative movement is usually described in the language of heritage and community. There is an alternative description, and it is the state’s own: an audit, society by society, with registration numbers and losses per labour day.
It is more interesting than the heritage version, and nobody writing for visitors seems to have opened it.
The structure
The Directorate of Coir Development runs Kerala’s coir cooperatives through ten project offices. The Kollam project office covers eight circles and 82 working Coir Vyavasaya Co-operative Societies. The circles are the geography of the industry around Ashtamudi: Karunagappally with 14 live societies, Kollam with 15, Kundara with 14, Perinadu with 11, Chavara with 9, Adoor with 9 and a further 5, Panmana with 5.
Perinad is the panchayat on the mainland shore immediately adjoining Munroe Island. If any circle is this page’s circle, it is that one.
The numbers
From the 2014-15 operational summary for the Kollam project, and they are worth reading slowly.
Eight circles. Eighty-two coir producing cooperatives. Total members: 45,488. Registered "sympathisers": 43,023. Number of workers engaged in production: 1,404. Average number of working days: 123.
Total wages paid: ₹1.902 crore. Direct benefit transfer paid as incentive: ₹1.40 crore. Coir produced: 8,182 quintals, worth ₹3.96 crore. Cost of production per quintal: ₹4,893. Loss per quintal: ₹293.
Members to producing workers is a ratio of about thirty-two to one. The wage bill across those workers and days comes to roughly ₹110 a day. The government’s separate incentive payment is nearly three-quarters the size of the entire wage bill. And the societies sold their coir for less than it cost them to make it.
And a majority of the units are shut
The functional breakdown for the Kollam circle in the same year: of 159 units, 82 operating, 25 non-operating, 23 that never commenced production at all, and 29 under liquidation. The report’s own summary is that only 51.6 per cent are functional and seventy-seven are dysfunctional.
Among the dead: both of the circle’s two mechanised de-fibering units. Kollam’s only attempt at the technology that made Tamil Nadu dominant is sitting idle.
The sentence that explains everything
The Kundara circle is audited society by society, with registration numbers — Vellimon No. 293, Pampalil No. 864, Kandachira No. 50, Pulikuzhi No. 626, Perinadu No. 873, Chemmakkadu No. 300 and the rest.
Perinadu No. 873 was the biggest employer of the fourteen: 28 workers, 203 working days, 5,684 labour days. It still lost money, though only just — ₹4,016, about a quarter of one per cent on cost. Vellimon No. 293 and Pulikuzhi No. 626 turned small profits. Kanjiracode No. 358 managed 8 workers over 40 working days and lost ₹10,898, the worst deficit per labour day in the circle at ₹34.05.
Then the report says this, of thirteen societies of which eleven added to the pool of loss: if the units remain shut down and kept non-operative, the quantum of loss can be reduced to the extent of ₹15 per labour day. The fear of mounting-loss phobia encourages majority of the managements to keep the units as non-functioning.
That is a government report stating that a Kollam coir society loses less money by not working. It explains the seventy-seven dysfunctional units better than any narrative of gentle decline, and it means that a shut society is not always a failure — sometimes it is the least bad available decision.
On four societies whose stock turnover could not even be computed, the report adds that in most of the societies, proper accounting system for any type of financial transaction is not kept, and that the coir inspectors evade their responsibilities of effective inspection.
Nobody knows how many coir workers there are
This is the detail we would most like every page about Kerala coir to carry, because it licenses everyone to stop printing tidy figures.
The report: unfortunately, we don’t have the correct number of workers directly and indirectly employed in the coir industry in the State. The estimates range between 40 thousand and 3.5 lakhs. And majority of them are women.
A ninefold range, in an official document. Elsewhere the same report says the industry employed about 5 lakh workers in its glorious years, of which 85% were women, and quotes a figure of about four lakh coir workers of whom two lakh are women. Three mutually inconsistent numbers inside one government report.
Statewide the society picture matches Kollam’s: of 993 coir societies registered up to 2015, only 536 were working, and only 154 generated a profit in 2014, 164 in 2015. Kerala holds about 76% of India’s coir societies and 93% of their members. It holds the movement. The movement is, to a considerable extent, a membership roll.
Frequently asked questions
How many people actually work in coir around Kollam?
By the Directorate of Coir Development’s 2014-15 figures for the Kollam project office: 1,404 workers engaged in production across 82 working societies, for an average of 123 days each — against 45,488 members on the books.
Are the cooperatives profitable?
No. Kollam’s societies produced 8,182 quintals at a cost of ₹4,893 per quintal and a loss of ₹293 on each. Statewide, of 993 registered societies only 536 were working and only 164 made a profit in 2015.
Why are so many societies shut?
Because shutting can cost less than operating. The report states that if units remain non-operative the loss can be reduced by about ₹15 per labour day, and that "the fear of mounting-loss phobia encourages majority of the managements to keep the units as non-functioning". Of 159 units in the Kollam circle, 77 were dysfunctional.
How many coir workers does Kerala have?
Nobody knows. The state’s own report says the correct number is not available and gives a range of 40,000 to 3.5 lakh — a ninefold spread — while elsewhere in the same document citing about 5 lakh in the industry’s better years and about 4 lakh more recently. The majority are women.