Amarsing Satnami of Gandabaheli village in Nuapada district was rescued with five of his family members from a brick kiln of Bengaluru in 2013.
All of the family members were issued bonded labour certificate by the labour Department of the Karnataka Government. Returning home, Amarsing submitted the certificates to the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) for availing the rehabilitation assistance, but even after two and a half years, he has not been paid the same.
Dinanath Dal of Dargaon village along with 11 other bonded labourers with their family members had also been rescued from a brick kiln of Tamil Nadu in the same year.
None of them has yet been rehabilitated. These villagers had been displaced from their home in the first phase of evacuation in the lower Indra Irrigation Project.
“The project authority did not provide us any alternative livelihood; so we were forced to leave for distance places in search for alternatives,” said Surendra, one of the project displaced who turned a migrant.
The DRDA record shows that, 264 bonded labourers have been rescued from different brick kilns of the south Indian States in last three years, but none of them has been provided financial assistance under the bonded labour scheme.
As per the Bonded labour Rehabilitation Scheme, the bonded labourers after their release should be provided with rehabilitation assistance of `20,000 each. The district authority sends the proposals for rehabilitation to the concerned department of the State Government, which in turn is forwarded to the Central Government for release of Central share.
Furthermore, it is also the responsibility of the State to improve the living conditions and workplace facilities of released bonded labourers by strengthening access to the Government schemes. But, unfortunately, due to lack of efforts, most of the labourers rescued resort back to distress migration.
“When employment is not available here, how can we surviveIJ” asks Banmali Dal of Dargaon village, who was rescued from Easwari Brick kiln of Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu in 2013, but fell back to migration again in 2014 as he did not get immediate Government support to sustain his family.
“We have sent all the rehabilitation proposals to the Government, but the payment is delayed as there is immense delay in release of Central share,” says a DRDA official.