The only way of earning for about 90 percent people of village Agshoial under Haripur union of Chatmohar upazila of Pabna distict is to commission (install or boring) pipes. As a result, many neighbouring villagers termed the village as ' Pipe Mistrider Gram' (Village for Pipe borers).
The village Agshoil is situated two-kilometre North-west of Chatmohar Municipal town. The village has 1,200 people (from 335 families). Of them nearly 1,000 people earn their livelihood by adopting the profession of pipe boring.
Nazim Uddin (67) of the village informed, he has been engaged in the profession of pipe boring for about last 50 years.
He works for installing hand-tube wells, deep-tubewells, semi-deep tubewells and the submersible pumps using pipes of various diameters. There are 32 sets of owners. Five to seven labourers work in each set. At the first phase work, the pipe diggers bore the earth with iron pipes. Afterwards, they set up platic or iron pipes of various diameters for the hand tubewells, deep, shallow tubewells or submersible pumps.
The set owner usually charge Taka 1,500 for commissioning the pipe of a hand-tubewell, Taka 2,000 to 2,500 for commissioning the pipe of a shallow-tubewell. Each labourer gets a wage of Taka 350.
Kausar (23), an Honours final year student of the Department of Sociology of Chatmohar Government College works as a pipe boring labourer in addition to his studies for the last four years. He said, he manages the expenses of his study by working as a pipe borer as well as he also helps his family with the money.
He informed, nearly 25 students of the village are engaged with the job of pipe boring. He added, the demand for pipe borer increases during the dry-season from the month of November to May while during rest period of the year most of them spend an idle time or do other work.
Moqbul Hossain, Chairman of Haripur union informed, most of the people of Agsoil village have adopted the profession of pipe boring. During the leisure period, they work as farm-labourers or do other jobs.
There are also some higly educated people of the village who are engaged in various professions in other places of the country.