A process was started by the district administration to bring back the youths of Kendrapada and adjoining districts, who are languishing in a Colombo-based steel company for months together without salary and living amid threat to their lives.
District Collector Debaraj Senapati on Friday wrote a letter to the State labour Commissioner asking to take steps to bring back about 30 youths of the district who had on Friday told about their plight thorough a social networking site.
According to District labour Officer (DlO) Satyanarayan Acharya, Parbati Rout, wife of Ramakanta Rout , a victim youth, brought to the notice of the Rajnagar tehsildar and the District labour Officer the ordeal of the Odia workers in Sri lanka and urged them to take steps to repatriate them back home.
Parbati told that her husband’s health condition was not good but the company was not allowing him and other fellow Odia workers to go home. The ill fated workers were tortured after they protested the steel company’s apathy towards a fellow Odia worker from Jajpur who died due to illness.
Though the Odia workers urged the company to arrange for the shifting of the body to his native land, the company remained silent. The protesting Odia workers were not paid their salary and not allowed to go back to India.