Training in construction skills transforms the life of Babu

Our guest author, Shreya Srinath, is an undergraduate student at State University of New York at Geneseo NY. Writing social impact stories is one of her passions and here she presents the success story of Babu Sona Ghosh by talking to him on the RMZ construction site in Bengaluru. Shreya is keenly observing and studying the skill development space by interacting with several beneficiaries of training in the unorganized industry sector in India.

Here’s Babu’s story in the words of Shreya:

My name is Babu Sona Ghosh. My parents are farmers who live in West Bengal. I am 21 years old and I work on the RMZ Ecoworld site itself. I came to Bangalore 4 years ago. But before that, I worked in cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Hyerabad as well. I don’t speak Tamil or Kannada, but I picked it up when I was working. I picked up several other languages the same way as well. Back then, I worked as a carpenter. I earned about Rs 6,000 a month. I left carpentry for construction when I came to Bangalore.

Although I worked in several different cities, I was never trained. I simply did what I was told to do by my contractors and supervisors. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I joined LabourNet’s training course to learn this. I learned the correct methods to use the tools and I learned about safety as well. I didn’t find the training course hard as such, but I’m sure that it would have been if I didn’t have Ashraf Sir and the other trainers to teach me. They made even the hardest concepts seem easy and made us practice a lot during the practical training in the mockyard. Because of this, I was able to learn to use the tools effectively.

After completing the training, I chose to continue work on the RMZ site itself. What used to take me 10-12 hours to complete earlier, took me only half the time now. Seeing this, I was very pleased with myself. I was proud of what I had accomplished and my contractors were pleased with my performance as well. I work better and I work much faster now as well. I earn a lot more now as well.

I joined LabourNet’s training program because I wanted to move forward in life. I didn’t want to be in the same position while everyone else moved ahead. I wanted to get a high paying, secure job as well. Should anyone offer an advanced training course, I would surely join it because I want to move forward with my life and I want to achieve something.