Quick-fix pills: Psychiatrists are d like abnormalitie.

Rabin Sarkar was a veritable Jeeves. When his employer, a retired and ailing government officer living in Delhi, hired him from an agency supplying domestic workers, Sarkar seemed like an answer to everybody’s prayers. If the tap in the bathroom was leaking, he’d repair it. If the television was malfunctioning, he had a remedy. He cooked, cleaned and dusted — and took good care of his employer.

He also forged his employer’s signature on a cheque and tried to encash it. The bank manager felt there was something wrong and Sarkar was taken away by the police. It was then that the employer discovered that cash was missing from his house where he lived all by himself. “I tried to contact the agency that had provided me with Sarkar but the line had been disconnected. And all that I had was a mobile number, so we couldn’t even trace the agency,” he says.

For every Sarkar, of course, there are hundreds of domestic workers who are honest and hardworking. Every day, scores of people — mostly women — come to places such as Calcutta and Delhi, usually from poor families in Jharkhand, Orissa, rural Bengal and Assam, in search of work. Not surprisingly, agencies have been mushrooming in all the metros to supply employers with domestic workers. At least five maid service agencies in Calcutta make arrangements for “domestic hands” to work as cooks, babysitters and attendants for the sick and elderly and housekeepers.

For Anuradha Mukherjee, a railway officer who lives in Bali, near Calcutta, getting a maid to look after her father involved an extensive search. “I wanted someone dependable, so I approached a maid service agency in Calcutta,” she says. That’s how 31-year-old Anusheta from Sodepur joined the Mukherjee household.

To many, it seems like an ideal solution. People want domestic workers or attendants, and domestic workers want work. Domestic workers are paid, depending on their skill, anything from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,500 a month.

In some of the better-run agencies, a contract is drawn up between the employer and the employee. A salary is fixed and a commission — sometimes a month’s salary, but more often an amount between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 — is paid to the agency. The employer has to give a certain number of days as leave to the employee. And the agency promises the employer that if the employee leaves the job before a year, he or she will be replaced.

But as more and more homemakers are discovering, quite a few agencies are fly-by-night outfits that promise the moon but deliver little. And often even so-called established agencies, which advertise in national dailies, don’t deliver.

Renu Kaul Verma, a Delhi-based publisher, paid a registration fee of Rs 1,000 to book a domestic worker. Another Rs 4,000 was to be paid once the agency provided the Vermas with a worker. “They promised to do so in two or three days. Two months have gone by. I have been ringing up several times every day but I’m yet to get a maid,” she complains. Exasperated, she has given up hope of either getting a maid or a refund.

Most people complain that agencies have no accountability. Says Joseph Pukat, managing trustee of the Delhi-based Consumer Coordination Committee, “These are in the nature of liaisoning services and are essentially a grey area. If a consumer is not too happy with the kind of services the agencies offer, there is not much in the Consumer Protection Act for them. And if people decide to take them to court, they will certainly spend more on litigation than the Rs 1,000 they have lost. So actually the Act is impracticable in such a case.”

The police is also of not much help in such cases. “We always advise maid service agencies to register their maids as we maintain a Household Help Register. It is the responsibility of the agencies to approach us,” says Goutam Chakraborty, additional commissioner of police (I), Calcutta. “As far as maids are concerned, we take action if there’s any problem that violates the Indian Penal Code,” he adds.

With the demand for domestic workers far outstripping supply, the agencies are the ones dictating the terms. “The commission rate and salaries have gone up. And this is without any safeguards,” says Delhi-based Neha Singh, who works at a business process outsourcing (BPO) company.

But there is a flip side to the issue. Very often, domestic workers are abused sexually or otherwise by their employers or by those running an agency. Lata Yadav, co-ordinator at Nirmala Niketan, a Delhi-based agency which has about 100 girls registered with it at present, has been working with maids harassed by their employers. “During the last three months, we have rescued six girls. We have filed four cases with the National Human Rights Commission, of which one has been settled.”

And what do the employees have to say about a life of servitude? “We have no family life and are also unable to take proper care of our children even when they fall ill since the work is so pressurising,” says Pushpa Mondal, who is from South Barasat. “But we have to put bread on the table; so we make the best of what we get,” she sighs.