Kumaran’s arms move with a young rhythm because they talk about decades of life, which is in the form of Mason of the Uralungal Labor Contract Cooperative Society (ULCS), which is a week away from celebrating its hundredth anniversary. At the age of 85, he now spends the hour of his waking hours in Madithtu, a senior civilian day care center, run by the same society in a spectacularly designed building in Karkar village in Kojikode district. Keeping him a company is about 30 senior citizens from the area, including 86 -year -old Davotti and his sister, fellow society like 82 -year -old Lectmi.
“When I worked, we did everything manually, because there was hardly any machinery. I started a lot of youth with the payment of 2 Anas (coins used in British India), which was greatly improved by the time I retired. Three of my six children work with the society. Now I enjoy my days, exercise, sing, and interact with others of my age. Kumaran says, “Employees take care of our children.
A wooden work and furniture -making unit operated by the Uralunga Labor Contracting Cooperative Society in Kozhikode. To ensure the quality and quick distribution of raw materials, the society has been operating its own construction material manufacturing units for a few years. , Photo Credit: SR Praveen
A few kilometers away, in the headquarters of the society near Vadkara with National Highway 66, things, on the contrary, run at a frantic speed. Daily review meetings of more than 300 active works are running at a price of over 6,500 crores, from highways, bridges and buildings to the length and width of Kerala. In its centenary year, the working class-owned cooperative society has spread its wings from a village-based cooperative to become an integral part of the state’s infrastructure development process.
It is the only primary cooperative in India to be a permanent member of the International Cooperative Alliance and was voted as the second best cooperative in the world behind Spain -based Mondragon Corporation in 2018 and 2019.
Like Kumaran, the current vice-president of the society, MM Surendran, 60, remembers to start as a mason in his late adolescence, which take steps by step through democratic, non-political elections among workers. Almost everyone at the top of the society is now a past to labor under the sun.
In the last two decades, at the core of the idea process of leadership, its extreme growth duration, information technology, art and crafts, future prefabricated constructions, material testing, housing, and its 18,000 workers, have been diversification in continuous apocalypse of engineers. , And other employees. It has tried to keep itself as a cooperative option for corporate veterans.
Amidst the verandy greenery of Nelicode, the first information technology park in Malabar region is ul cyberpark, established by the Society in 2016, which is now fully occupied by 41 Information Technology (IT) companies, 2,700 people Employment provides and exports software ₹ 164 crore in the first three quarters of the current financial year.
Along with other IT Biggies, including Tata ElsC, one of the Space -occupying companies, UL Technology Solutions (ULTS), is the IT subsidiary of the society, which has a project to implement a digital, paperless system in Kerala Legislative Assembly Compiring and internet’s Internet Thrissur Corporation to optimize water management (IOT) and a data analytics-based project. A colleague, built after the concept of the open office, is borrowed from Google, the ULTS office is full of youth, many of which are hail from the Malabar region.
Ramshan Paleri, Chairman of Ulccs, who has been doing cooperative work for the last three decades. , Photo Credit: SR Praveen
“As the influence of liberalization and globalization in our villages in the late 1990s, we realized that there would be a demand for white -collar jobs among the next generation of workers’ families. Uralungal cooperative society has always developed by adding changes in large social structure. Many people made fun of our schemes for an IT company, questioned the argument of road workers for the creation of an IT company, but we look at the world differently, and paid it, ”TK Kishore Kumar, Main The operational officer, ul cyberpark, says.
beginning
In the early 1920s, a group of youth from Uralungal village formed a collectively assimilation Sangham of an anti -caste, inspired by the teachings of social reformer Vagbhanandan with a group of youth from Uralungal village. With their activities for the systematic denying jobs and education, the youth formed Uralungal Cooperative in 1925 with 37 Paisa, which were initial capital to provide jobs to backward castes, which were destabilized Had been.
Kumaran (Center), 85, a former employee of Ulccs at Madithastu, an Bujru Day Care run by the Cooperative Society at Karkakkad, Kozhikode. , Photo Credit: SR Praveen
Some of its initial works were as part of the reconstruction efforts after the 1924 unprecedented floods, but it still had to struggle initially to secure government contracts. Nearly a century later, the society will be part of the reconstruction work after the 2024 Wayanad landslides along with the floods of 2018 and 2019.
But a large number of state government in the society’s kitty has invited his share of criticism in recent years with the leader of opposition VD Sathasan. “Ulccs, which he” called the place where CPI (M) parks his corruption money. ,
He questioned the practice of giving work contract to the society without tender. The informal investigation of the Enforcement Directorate at the ULCS Head Office as part of a money laundering investigation also teased the tongue.
For the last three decades, the president of the society Ramshan Paleri says that there is no politics in the society, although individual members may have their own personal priorities.
“Elections here are not based on politics here. The Society became a recognized agency during the tenure of the Congress -led United Democratic Front Sarkar. During the tenure of Oman Chandy, the initial agreement was to complete the Kozhikode bypass including the Corepuzha Bridge within 24 months. The Chief Minister had asked if we could complete it in 18 months. We abolished the 5.1-km project in 14 months. The society has always worked with gradual governments in power, none of which is facing any defect for delay or cost of our works. In fact, we have completed many projects that were abandoned by other companies, such as the Manveyam Vedi project in Thiruvananthapuram. It is a public institution that is open by any agency to investigate, ”says Rumation.
Under the norms of the Government of Kerala, labor contract cooperatives get preference treatment and exceptions, including the eligibility for contracts up to 10% from the lowest quotes from private contractors.
Last year, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court rejected the appeal filed by private contractors, challenging government orders that provide preference treatment to labor cooperative societies. The court noticed that the laborers who lacked the resources that created a cooperative society had to compete with a cooperative society to compete with rich individual contractors, who did not consider all WHEREWITHAL to be related to the same category. could go.
Ramshan says that cooperatively has become enough to compete against big companies of infrastructure such as Adani Enterprises and Vinn Tenders, as it has become from Chengla in Kasargod district in a six-lanning project of 39 km National Highway 66 Was up to Chengla. They say that in 22 ongoing national highway projects from one end of Kerala to the other, it is only handled by Ulccs. This is the stretch that is now complete, they say.
Amidst the hurry of projects, providing jobs to its employees will remain the primary purpose of society, which means that it never does its functions subcontinent, with them all are executed by employees in its parole.
Employees are provided benefits, including bipolar bonuses, provident funds, gratuity, health insurance, outstation allowance as well as free food and housing at all the sites of the society. Kitchen utensils always come before work machinery work, says that a pilot project of UlCS under its new auxiliary U-spare, one of the workers at the Unity Mall Site in Pallapuram, Thiruvananthapuram, one of the workers at the Unity Mall Site, quickly prefabricated steel -The time to create based structures.
Workers with ‘A’ class membership hold the shares of the company and have voting rights, while entry level workers get ‘C’ class membership with all benefits except voting rights. In its role as a guarantor of Ulccs loan, the ‘B’ class shares are held to the state government.
To ensure the quality control and quick distribution of raw materials, the society has been operating its own construction material manufacturing units for a few years. With the total solutions and its placement as a service provider, its in-house team performs all mechanical, electrical, plumbing and design related tasks related to any project.
Cultural field
Between a beautiful hill in Thiruvananthapuram, Kovalam Beach’s neglect is located in the Kerala Kala and Shilp village, which is a major project of society to promote skilled artisans as well as promote artists. After the Ulccs-Run Saragalaya village in Kozhikode, it is now home to the annual international Indie music festival and the Ragbagh Performance Kala Festival.
Shivprakash, a terrakota artisan from Nilambur and one of the 28 permanent artisans studios here, says that the village has given a new lease on life to its business. “I depended on the exhibitions to sell my ware. But with a stable influx of tourists here, I now manage the sale of about ₹ 1 lakh monthly, ”says Shivprakash.
For intellectually challenge
One of the interesting initiatives of ULCS has been vocational training and the appointment of intellectually challenged adults. According to MK Jayaraj, director of the ULCS Foundation, a total of 138 adults trained in their convenience in Kozhikode are now kept for various jobs in hospitals, shops and clinics, while the other 80 currently training.
Meanwhile, Ulccs is carefully planning its forest in more areas. “Whatever changes happen around the world, we are convinced to work again and are favorable to work.”
Published – 06 February, 2025 08:57 pm IST
