A fact-finding report by civil society groups has inferred that bonded labour was rampant in sugarcane growing areas in Belagavi and Bagalkot districts.
The study was undertaken after around 60 bonded labourers being used by sugar factories for harvesting, were sent back last fortnight. A total of 49 bonded labourers, including nine children, were sent back from Belagavi district and 12 were sent back from Bagalkot district.
Members of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties – Karnataka (PUCL-K), All-India Lawyers’ Association for Justice (AILAJ), and All-India Students’ Association (AISA) visited villages in Belagavi to study the situation and submitted a report to the Government with a list of demands. The report found that taluk-level officials who had met the labourers had erroneously decided that they were not bonded labourers.
The report said that the labourers belonging to the Adivasi communities from Madhya Pradesh were brought to this region. A labour contractor, who had taken money from sugar factories, had brought them by paying ₹20,000 per person. This group had 20 people, including nine children. “However, they were not told about the wages they would be paid, working conditions or period of employment. They were not given a proper place to stay while working. They had to live in tents and relieve themselves in the open. Each labourer was forced to work for over 15 hours every day, harvesting and transporting sugarcane. But despite such hard work, they were not paid any wages. They only got around ₹30 as tips by the farmers, whose crop was being harvested,” the report said. The labourers were informed that the advance given to them was a loan and that they had to work till it was repaid, it added.
The group had a debt of ₹2 lakh and they all had to work till it was cleared, the contractor said. “This is clearly a ‘bonded debt’ as defined under the Bonded Labour Systems (Abolition) Act, 1976. We have mentioned this in the report,’” Avani Choksi, a member of the committee said.
The members were shocked to see that the tahsildar of the concerned taluks conducted local inquiries, along with officers of labour and police departments and gram panchayats, and reported that there was neither bonded labour nor child labour.
Apart from the Bonded Labour Systems (Abolition) Act, 1976, there were violations of provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, and even the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which makes the forced labour of a member of a Scheduled Tribe punishable with imprisonment extending up to five years, said the report.
The committee observed that the two incidents from Belagavi cannot be seen in isolation. “The workers in their interactions with the fact-finding team revealed that they knew of many such groups which migrated from their homes to different districts in Karnataka, including Belagavi and Bagalkot. The migration of workers to various districts in Karnataka is an annual occurrence,’’ it said.
It recommended a series of measures, including sensitisation of officers and empathetic enforcement of laws. The DC and labour department should work in coordination to ensure abolition of child labour, to put an end to bonded labour and regulate inter-State migration of labour. The Belagavi DC should take extra precautions to prevent bonded labour in sugarcane harvesting, it demanded.
