Rescued bonded labours singing a prayer song before eating their meals at Manavseva project shelter home at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra.
| Photo Credit: Purnima Sah
In a first, the Maharashtra government has released a compensation of ₹86 lakh to 39 people rescued from bonded labour in Ahilya Nagar (previously Ahmednagar) in 2023. Among those rescued are 14 children.
Taking suo motu cognisance of The Hindu report titled, ‘Survivors of bonded labour in Maharashtra: unshackled, yet the scars run deep’ and a couple of other reports on the survivors of bonded labour, the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC) directed the State government to release compensation for the survivors under the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourer (CSSRBL).
All the survivors had been initially paid ₹30,000 each from the State’s bonded labour victim compensation fund.
Assistant Labour Commissioner Nashik C.N. Birar said this was the first time in the State that a total of ₹86 lakh of final compensation was being released in a single year for 39 survivors of bonded labour from two districts. From Nashik, 25 survivors received a final compensation of ₹44 lakh (19 women and child survivors received ₹2 lakh each and six male survivors got ₹1 lakh each) and 14 survivors (₹3 lakh each) from Ahilya Nagar got a final compensation of ₹42 lakh.
Counselling under way
“The ones from Nashik who were rescued from Ahilya Nagar, belong to the Katkari tribe. There were children aged between 13 and 15 among the total 31 survivors. Of them, 25 have received final compensation and six of them are expected to receive ₹11 lakh as final compensation by January 2025. The rescued children have been admitted to schools in their respective villages. With the help of NGOs, they are given counselling to overcome the trauma. They have undergone physical and mental harassment,” said Mr. Birar.
Revannath Bhisale, Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Ahilya Nagar, said all the hearings at the judicial magistrate court on the issue happened in the last eight months. “Once the Central government releases the fund, it comes to the State government, which then transfers it to the respective District Collectors. From there, the fund is transferred to the respective bank accounts of the survivors. On October 29, 2024, we deposited ₹3 lakh in each (14 survivors) of the survivors’ bank accounts and it was credited the next day. Of these 14 survivors, six are physically and mentally ill. NGOs, labour department, revenue department and the police department worked together to make this happen with constant follow-ups.”
Siraj Shaikh, administrative officer of the Shree Amrutvahini Gramvikas Mandal, an NGO in Ahilya Nagar that offers shelter to homeless people, said, “It is for the first time in India that the government has issued full compensation to multiple survivors of bonded labour in a year. But we want this to be sustainable and futuristic for them and we wish to make them financially independent so that they do not have to be dependent on the NGO. We are working on a skill-development model that will shape them as an entrepreneur, but it requires a lot of counselling and training because some of them are differently abled, some are extremely traumatised that they have lost speech. We are open to receiving funds to take this forward.”
The NGO learnt about the fund being credited to the survivors’ accounts only on December 21, 2024, as the accounts were not linked to any mobile phone as the survivors do not own one nor was KYC (Know Your Customer) verification done.
Cannot withdraw funds
Dilip Gunjal, founder of the NGO, said, “We received the letter from MSHRC only on December 12, 2024, saying the money is credited. I went to check the bank passbooks on December 21. The fund is credited but they will not be able to withdraw money as they need to do KYC. To do KYC, they require documents such as residential proof, voter ID, Aadhaar card and then PAN card (Permanent Account Number). We have approached the District Collector who has promised help with the documentation. From the NGO, we can provide them domicile residential certificate. The bank accounts were created first because the District Collector insisted that the labour department consider it as a special case.”
Four rehabilitated
The NGO has also been able to successfully rehabilitate four survivors from Nandurbar, Pune, Bihar and West Bengal and reunited them with their family.
“We are constantly following up on their well-being. The person in Nandurbar is practising farming, the survivor in Pune is a security guard in a mall, the one from Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, is working on the family’s agriculture land and the survivor from Samastipur, Bihar, works in a rice mill,” said Mr. Shaikh.
Published – December 25, 2024 04:31 am IST
