Nayagarh: Registration of workers in the unorganised sectors in this district is quite disappointing, a report said. This has happened due to lack of awareness, sources said. Many of them do not even know that by registering themselves they can become beneficiaries of a government scheme. As a result, Nayagarh district lies at the bottom of the list of the registration of workers in the unorganised sector while Boudh district takes top position. It is pertinent to mention here that only a handful of 376 workers have registered for this government scheme in Nayagrah district while 26,236 have signed up in Boudh district.
This raises questions regarding the efficiency of the labour department in the district. The matter came to the fore from a reply obtained from the office of the state Labour Commissioner in an application filed under Right to Information Act (RTI) by a resident of Nayagarh district, Devi Prasad Mohapatra.
According to the reply, over 1,74,564 unorganised workers have been registered themselves from April, 24, 2017 to March 15, 2021 under the Odisha Unorganised Workers Social Security Board in Bhubaneswar. Among them, 1,964 are from Angul district, 7,468 from Balasore district, 9,618 in Bhadrak district, 2,393 in Bargarh district and 11,153 in Bolangir district.
The figures for the other districts are Boudh (26,236), Ganjam (3,350 ), Cuttack (6,891), Deogarh (636), Dhenkanal (1,536), Gajapati (1,183), Jagatsinghpur (6,799), Jajpur (5,596), Jharsuguda (1,691), Kalahandi (1,120), Kandhamal (1,089), Kendrapara (8,193), Khurda (3,728), Keonjhar (6,832), Koraput (3,058), Malkangiri (3,118), Mayurbhanj (1,473), Nayagarh (376), Nabarangpur (11,438), Nuapada (6,000), Puri (6,967), Rayagada (6,058), Sambalpur (494), Subarnapur (4,379), Ganjam (11,810) and Sundargarh (10,592).
When contacted, Mohapatra said going by the number of registration of workers it seems that the officials of the Labour department are not working in Nayagarh district. He alleged that even though there are a lot of workers in the unorganised sector in the district but officials are deliberately not registering their names for reasons best known to them.
Trade Union leader Basudev Mohanty said that small traders, domestic workers, rickshaw pullers, auto-drivers, farm labourers, cobblers, kendu leaf pluckers and workers, newspaper hawkers, scarp pickers and dealers vegetables, fruit vendors, tea and coffee stall owners, eateries and snacks vendors can register their names and receive the benefits from the board on the basis of letter(3327, dated-April 24, 2017) issued by the state government.
Sunyajayi Mishra, president of Nayagarh District Labour Federation alleged that officials register construction workers under the scheme because they get cutback money. As that doesn’t happen in case of other workers in the unorganised sector, the officials are apathetic towards building awareness about the government scheme in Nayagarh district.
Alloo dum-dahibara seller Subrat Sahu, tea stall owner Ramachandra Swain, auto-driver Sudam Pradhan, rickshaw puller Bata Krushna Naik and newspaper hawker Chiranjaibi Pradhan said they are not aware of any scheme launched by the government for their benefit.
PNN
