After a few days of lull, another incident of exploitation of bonded labourers came to limelight when two Andhra Pradesh-based NGOs brought 72 rescued labourers from the Telangana area to the Bhubaneswar railway station on Friday.
The labourers, including 24 children and 26 women, were rescued from a brick kiln at Goudawalli under Medchal Mandal in Rangareddy district of Telangana. The labourers, who were rescued by the Rangareddy district Collector, hail from Patnagarh block of Balangir district and the 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 rescue the labourers.
According to a rescued labourer, Jatindra Tandi, they were taken by a local middleman to the brick kiln owned by Tirupati Rao in July last. When they asked the owner to pay their wages, he did not respond to their queries, he added. “Except a meagre weekly expenditure, the owner didn’t give anything else to us. Rao delayed our payment of six months and then threatened us not to tell anybody about the incident,” said Tandi to The Pioneer.
Tandi said the owner had promised to pay Rs 300 as making charge for 1,000 bricks. A family consisting of four to five members had made two to three lakh bricks within their working period. Therefore, the owner didn’t pay around Rs 60,000 to Rs 90,000 per family, he added. So, the labourers with the help of a few NGOs asked the district administration to help them out.
After the NGOs reached here by the East Coast Express, they contacted the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) Odisha to help them out. The labourers would reach their homes tonight, said the volunteers who came with them.