Peshgi is part of how a bhatta works. A family needs money for a wedding, a hospital bill or the months when the kiln is cold, and the owner advances it against future work. Done well, it keeps good workers on the kiln. Done badly, it becomes a pile of unrecoverable balances and a reason for people to leave in the night.
The owner’s instinct is to set a hard ceiling. The worker’s experience is that the ceiling is applied to him and not to the next man. The result is a limit that nobody believes in. Here is a way to set one that holds.
Start from a rule, not a number
A limit of “forty thousand” sounds firm but means different things to a moulder with a family of eight and a young loader on his first season. A rule travels better:
- A number of weeks’ wages. For example, no more than six weeks of the worker’s own average Thursday wage. A worker who earns more can borrow more, and the recovery stays in proportion.
- A maximum balance, not a maximum advance. The question is not “how much can he take today” but “how much can he owe in total”. Recovery brings the balance down and opens room for the next need.
Whatever the rule, write it down and say it the same way to everyone.
Make recovery automatic and gentle
A large recovery that wipes out a week’s wage pushes a worker straight back to asking for dasti. A small fixed amount each Thursday, or a fixed share of the wage, is easier to live with and more likely to continue. If the amount is known in advance, the worker plans around it.
Separate dasti from peshgi in the record. Dasti is a few hundred rupees against this week’s work and clears on Thursday. Peshgi is larger and clears over months. Mixing them makes both impossible to track.
Give the munshi a smaller limit than yourself
Most runaway balances are not the owner’s decision; they are a series of small ones made at the munshi’s table when the owner was away. Set a limit for what the munshi can advance on his own, say up to a certain amount per worker without asking. Anything above that needs the owner’s word. The munshi is not insulted by this; it protects him too.
Show the balance to the worker
The single most effective change is also the simplest: the worker can see his own line. Advance taken, each recovery, the balance today. When the figures are visible, two things happen. Disputes drop, because there is nothing to dispute. And requests become more reasonable, because a man who can see he owes thirty thousand does not ask for another twenty.
Print the balance on the Thursday slip. If you use an app, open the worker’s khata on the phone and let him read it.
When a worker leaves
A limit tied to weeks of wages means an outstanding balance is usually a few weeks of work, not a season’s. That is the real purpose of the limit: not to refuse people, but to keep the sum small enough that a departure is a loss you can absorb and a return is possible without shame.
A peshgi limit that workers accept is one they can explain to each other. Keep it a rule, keep the recovery small, and keep the balance in plain sight.