BHUBANESWAR:
After a few days lull, another incident of exploitation on bonded labourers
came to lime light when two Andhra Pradesh-based NGOs brought 72 rescued labourers
from Telengana area to Bhubaneswar
railway station on Friday.
The labourers including 24
children and 26 women were rescued from a brick kiln at Goudawalli village
under Medchal mandal in Ranga Reddy district of Telengana. The labourers, who
were rescued by the Ranga Reddy district Collector, hail from Patnagarh block
of Balangir district and Sinapalli area of Nuapada district.
After getting information from
the district administration, two NGOs, the International Justice Mission (IJM)
and the Association for Rural Development (ARD), expressed interest to bring
all the labourers to their homeland.
According to a rescued labourer
Jatindra Tandi, they were taken by a local middleman to the brick kiln owned by
Tirupati Rao in Ranga Reddy district in the month of July last year. When they
asked the owner to pay their wages, he could not respond to their queries, he
added.
“Except a meager weekly
expenditure, the owner didn’t give anything to them. Rao delayed our payment of
six months and then threatened us not to tell anybody about the incident,” said
Jatindra to The Pioneer.
Tandi said the owner had promised
to pay Rs 300 as making charge on 1000 brick. A family, consisted four to five members, had made two to three
lakh bricks within their working period in the kiln. Therefore the owner didn’t
pay around Rs 60,000 to Rs 90,000 per each family, he added.
Later the labourers with the help
of a few NGOs asked the district administration to help them out. The district
administration rescued the labourers and sent them to Odisha with the help of
the two NGOs. When the NGOs reached by the East Coast Express here, they
contacted the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) Odisha to help them out. The
labourers will reach their district tonight, said the volunteers came with them.
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