Bhubaneswar: After a gap of almost ten years, the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has sought a response from the state labour department on the steps it has taken to stop the scourge of bonded labour in the state’s under-developed areas. A full bench of three members of the commission took up the case suo moto Monday.
The commission sought the report while hearing an application filed by human rights activists Biswapriya Kanungo and Bijaya Kumar Panda over tragic fracture of the hand of a boy by a brick kiln owner at Kalaburgi area in Karnataka on the pretext of negligence in work at the brick kiln.
The minor victim hailing from Kadalimunda village under Patanagarh police limits of Bolangir was engaged as a bonded labourer at the kiln along with his parents in 2014.
Subsequently, his parents with the help of the activists succeeded in bringing him back to Odisha and got him treated at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. Later, the activists filed a plaint with the OHRC seeking compensation from the state government with consultation of Karnataka government.
A two-member bench of the commission had ordered the state government to award `50,000 to the victim which the government paid accordingly. However, the bench, after taking into account the sensitive nature of the issue of bonded labour migrating from the state to other states, had asked the state government to immediately submit before it the steps it has taken to rein in the mass migration.
However, the authorities did not give the report and in the meanwhile the commission’s strength was reduced to only one member. As per the rules, a division bench comprising two members can only take up suo motu decisions so the commission was not able to follow up the matter further.
Recently, following a full bench at the OHRC, the chairperson shifted the case to a full members’ bench that Monday ordered the labour department to submit its response on the migration of bonded labour. The commission asked the department to submit the report by October 28.
