The Tata Trust has come up with a proposal to constitute migrant labourers cooperative society, an umbrella organisation that will act as bridge between the employers and labourers, particularly the migrants from Odisha and Telangana.
The Tata Trust has mooted the formation of the society in consultation with the Labour departments of the two States at a meeting of the officials and brick kiln owners on Saturday. The proposal comes in the light of series of reports of migrant labour being exploited by kiln owners, who were reportedly paying lesser wages and not providing basic amenities at the work sites.
Labourers could be enrolled into the society with all the details like Aadhaar card, photographs, address, bank account details for payment of wages online. The society will help the kiln owners too in that they could directly place their requirement for workers with the society rather than approaching middlemen, sardars, as they are called locally.
The society will eliminate the need for kiln owners to pay advance sums to sardars for mobilising labour required for the work.
Welcoming the proposal, Deputy Labour Commissioner A. Gandhi said that such a society should be given legal sanctity and its functions governed under the Inter-State Immigration Act to ensure transparency. The recruitment and supply of migrant labourers through cooperative society will ensure minimum wages to the labourers besides making the legislations in vogue applicable for them, he opined.
District Collector Sarfaraz Ahmad said that the cooperative society by the Tata trust will check exploitation of the migrant labourers. There will not be any kind of problems for labourers and the brick kiln owners with the formation of cooperative society, he said and stressed on the need for conducting awareness programmes in this direction.
The Collector assured work site school for the children of migrant labourers and medical assistance for women, particularly pregnant women working at the brick kilns. He said that they would take all measures to ensure that the labourers live in proper accommodation with ventilation.