Jharna Pator at the steel factory site in Salboni. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Salboni, Oct. 31: The last six days, Jharna Pator has been working with other labourers to erect a 40km wall in Salboni.

What factory will come up behind it does not concern her. “Will it help me marry off my three daughters?” she asks.

As Jharna — in her mid-thirties, but she can’t tell her exact age — finishes her lunch, her gaze shifts to a stage being erected, a few hundred metres away.

The jogare (helper) probably does not know the stage is for the chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who will be here on Sunday to flag off JSW Bengal — Sajjan Jindal’s steel unit in West Midnapore and Bengal’s largest industrial project yet.

The wall Jharna is erecting is the factory’s boundary.

The completed plant will employ 18,000 people directly and create as many jobs indirectly. The Rs 35,000-crore project aims to produce 10 million tonnes of steel.

Jharna’s worries are about making both ends meet. “I get Rs 80 a day here. It is Rs 10 more than what I got elsewhere. I have been coming here for six days,” she says.

In a family of six — husband, three daughters and a son — there is not much she saves with her Rs 80 a day and her husband’s daily wage of Rs 130.

Her thoughts return to her daughters’ marriages. They don’t go to school, only Jharna’s son does. “If I get a better job, I can marry off my girls in families where they would not have to work like me in the fields,” Jharna says.

But she needs to save at least Rs 35,000 for each girl’s dowry. The steel plant may open a window of hope for her.

Villagers like Jharna are, however, aware that the factory won’t have jobs for all. Most are not qualified enough. “People understand that all will not get jobs. But if a factory comes up, many opportunities will be created for the younger ones in our homes,” says Sudarshan Chalak of the nearby Jambata village.

He and his four brothers gave 15 cottahs for the project. He admits the landlosers want jobs in the plant. “I can’t deny there is the expectation of jobs in such families. Others are not so hopeful,” Sudarshan says.

The Jindals paid about Rs 3 lakh-Rs 3.5 lakh an acre and offered free shares of JSW Bengal of equal value to each landloser. Since the factory was announced, land prices in the area have shot up.

Rajiv Lochan Das, who has seven bighas near the site, already dreams of his own hotel. “I get offers everyday for my land,” the State Bank of India employee says. How will he manage a hotel with his job?

“I will employ people,” he answers pat.

Knowledge about what to do with the shares is lacking but no one discounts its future worth. What did they do with the cash they got a year back?

“Most of us put it in fixed deposits,” Sudarshan says.