Labourers working in defence projects 'exploited'

Ranchi: Claiming that migrant labourers of Jharkhand working in high-altitude defence projects are exploited by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that he will take up the matter with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, as the situation has not changed despite repeated communications. The CM demanded 'martyr' status for the labourers who die laying infrastructure for the armed forces in inhospitable terrains, and claimed that labourers return to the state with bitter memories and do not want to work again for the BRO because of the undignified treatment they get.

Soren said that once the state gets over the COVID-19 crisis, he will personally hold meetings with chief ministers and administrators of various states and Union territories such as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and pitch for a robust mechanism to check workers' exploitation.

The BRO, however, denied the accusations of the chief minister and claimed that there are a number of labourers who are working for the organisation for a decade. "In April, I personally received bodies of 18 of our workers killed in an avalanche in Sumna, near the Indo-China border in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district. All the victims were employed by the BRO but their families did not receive proper compensation.

"The state government brought the bodies with its own resources. This hurts me and pains me," Soren said.

The chief minister said that a few days ago, he heard Rajnath Singh praising the BRO for constructing roads in tough terrains, but "it ripped my heart" when he did not utter a word for those who actually lay such infrastructure there.

The Jharkhand government has written a number of letters to the BRO accusing it of "gross violation" of Inter- State Migrant Workmen Act, framed to protect workers whose services are requisitioned outside their home states, by involving middlemen and touts to hire workers. Soren said that there are umpteen instances where he received migrant workers' bodies on the state's expenses with proper compensation to the kith and kin still pending.

"I am aghast at these. I will take up the matter with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh," the CM said.