The women collect non-biodegradable waste from houses and establishments, and none could afford to buy the ticket alone
Photo: Facebook/Kudumbashree
Eleven women working at a plastic waste segregation unit in the southern Indian state of Kerala pooled money to buy a lottery ticket for Rs 250 (around Dh11) and won the Rs 10 crore-jackpot (around Dh4,465,562), according to media reports.
The eleven lottery winners are members of the Haritha Karma Sena (HKS) under the Parappanangadi Municipality. HKS “collects non-biodegradable waste from houses and establishments to shredding units for recycling,” according to its official website.
A picture of the 11 women was also shared on the official Facebook page of Kudumbashree HKS. The lottery winners were P Parvathy, K Leela, MP Radha, M Sheeja, K Chandrika, E Bindu, Karthiyayini, K Shobha, C Baby, C Kuttymalu, and P Lakshmi, according to the text attached to the post.
None of them could alone buy the Rs 250 lottery ticket, and hence decided to pool money, news agency PTI reported. Some of the women did not even have Rs 25 (a little over 1Dh) in their purse, while one had to borrow money from an acquaintance.
It wasn’t the first time that these women had come together to try their luck, reported The Times Of India. P Parvathy told the newspaper that this was the fourth lottery ticket they had jointly bought.
The PTI report cited above added that these workers struggle to make the ends meet as they are the sole breadwinners of their families.
“Many have debts to pay...Have daughters to marry off...Or have to meet the treatment expenditure of near ones. They are living in very humble households fighting harsh realities of life,” Sheeja, chairperson of Haritha Karma Sena consortium at the municipality, told PTI.
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