Beware! Exploiters on prowl

Hyderabad:  Guwahati Express reaches Secunderabad at 5 am on Saturdays bringing many unemployed people, including minors, from far off places like Bihar, Assam and Odisha only to get exploited by hundreds of small chemical, cement, rubber, LPG and plastic units dashing their hopes of finding a decent job against the wall. 

Highlights:

• What is surprising is, the minors are being employed after tampering with their Aadhaar and Voter ID cards to show that they are not minors  
• There were instances of some of the workers meeting death in industrial accidents caused by boiler and LPG cylinder blasts
•  The deceased were sent to Gandhi and Osmania general hospital and cremated without arousing suspicion 

As there are no takers among the locals for such jobs which offer a pittance towards salary, unhealthy and hazardous working conditions, ill-treatment by the owners. The literate unemployed show little interest in working in these units. 

Yet these units require manpower to go on stream and to ensure profitability. 
We can find at least 20 agents offering placements in these hazardous units for the people who reached here from their native places. These agents were also once job seekers. 

They station themselves in Alpha hotel area near the Secunderabad railway station and give code and contact numbers to the unemployed job seekers from the distant lands. 

The unemployed are sent to the units in DCM vans and autorickshaws. These units have no concept of definite working hours. They work all through the day. They provide a tin-roofed shed for workers, no tasty food is offered let alone offering nutritious food, drinking water amenities are also not being provided, even if the workers want to quit their jobs they are not allowed to quit. Moreover, the workers will have no relations whatsoever with the outside world. 

The environment in rubber and chemical factories spoils the workers’ health. The polluting environment in the unit damages livers, heart and kidneys. The management is not bothered about whether a worker is healthy or not. It continues to exploit them. There were instances of some of the workers meeting death in industrial accidents caused by boiler and LPG cylinder blasts. 

The deceased were sent to Gandhi and Osmania general hospital and cremated without arousing suspicion of the third person. If anybody opts out of the unit not cherishing the work they are doing, they will be put to death. 

The workers’ unions work protecting the interests of the industrialist rather than protecting the workers interests. They are stooges to the management. 

The local police and politician protect these industrial unit managements and turn a blind eye to the happenings at these units provided their hands are greased periodically 
Officials of industries department and labour department officials prefer not visiting these units since they get their mamools. 

People from far off places reach the city to get a job, but find themselves utterly exploited and some of them are ending up as corpses. 

Owners of the industrial units behave in such a way putting the civil society to shame. Their main intension is to make money through exploiting the workers by indulging in violation of labour laws and other rules.
 
The governments pay no attention to protect the interests of the industrial workers. For the country to march on the road to progress, governments pay attention to workers problems and amend the laws to protect their interests. 

According to a 22-year-old migrant worker from Assam, Gautam, he reached here to work in a chemical unit in Patancheru. The working hours are long. The management beats the workers. The quality of food is not good. 

Workers would have to sleep under a tin shed. The management does not refer indisposed worker to doctor. Two of his friends accidentally fell into a boiler and died. The bodies were sent to Gandhi hospital and later cremated without even informing the parents. Somehow, he managed to escape from the unit. 

Under the leadership of North Zone DCP Sumati, the Gopalapuram police arrested those who traffic the youth illegally and their information has been fed into a computer. The police let them off with a warning.

 What is surprising is the minors are being employed tampering their Aadhaar and Voter ID cards to the affect that they are not minors. 
Sumati said that the industries and labour department officials should conduct raids on such unscrupulous industrial units. 

The units give priority to the other state workers as they have intension to treat them as bonded labourers. 

Which government department should be held accountable for the welfare of such exploited workers? Should they languish in darkness? 

By Ramesh Valmiki