OUKHOO IS not a place that you may have heard of, but the last pencil you used is almost certain to have come from here. The non-descript village in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir supplies slats—rectangular wood pieces— for most of India’s pencils. However, there is an acute decline in the numbers of the poplar (Populus deltoids) tree that is used in making the slats, say manufacturing units.
Down To Earth visited all the 17 units operating in the village to find that from the earlier average of 100-150 workers employed per unit, the number has come down to 40-50. There is no official record of the slats supplied or people employed to assess the decline in production of slats. But unit-owners and workers say that employment opportunities are disappearing. “These factories not only produce pencils but also provide us employment. We are around 30 girls working in the factory, and most of us belong to poor families,” says Fatima Nabi, a local girl working in a factory.
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