Skip to content
Case Study

Chintan

Rs. 2,030,000 awarded over two years to Chintan

While there is much discussion about the need for recycling waste among environmentalists and policy-makers in India, there is little recognition of the fact that recycling is already a large (and unrecognised) industry at the bottom end of which are the rag pickers.

These are people who go to solid waste dumps, pick out what can be recycled, and sell it to intermediaries who recycle and then re-market the matter. Rag pickers, on the lowest rung of society because of their occupation, and facing harassment from police, municipal authorities and society at large, provide the crucial link in the chain that makes recycling possible.

Chintan was set up in 1993 to address the difficulties that rag pickers face in their work. They have enabled rag pickers to get identity cards from the municipal corporation, set up cooperatives, intervened in their difficulties with police and authorities and linked them with government development schemes.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation has supported Chintan since 2003, initially funding legal literacy camps for rag pickers and later workshops that enabled them to interact with the local police. The work has been recognised and institutionalised by Delhi Police.

The current two year grant, worth 2,030,000 rupees, will continue this work and address the special problems faced by the two most disadvantaged categories of rag pickers, women and Bangladeshi migrants.